The works of Shakespeare: the text carefully restored according to the first editions; with introductions, notes original and selected, and a life of the poet;

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THE STUDENTS' HANDY EDITION.

THE WORKS

OF

SHAKESPEARE:

THE TEXT CAREFULLY RESTORED ACCORDING TO

THE FIRST EDITIONS; WITH INTRODUCTIONS,

NOTES ORIGINAL AND SELECTED, AND

A LIFE OF THE POET ;

BY THE

REV. H. N. HUDSON, A.M.

REVISED EDITION, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES.

IN TWELVE VOLUMES.

VOL. XI.

BOSTON:

ESTES AND LAURIAT,
301 WASHINGTON STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by

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Copyright, 1881,
BY ESTES AND LAURIAT.

JOHN WILSON AND Sos, CAMJIRIPOE.

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INTRODUCTION

TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET.

THE story, which furnished the ground- work of THE TRAOEDI
OP ROMEO AND JULIET, was exceedingly popular in Shake-
tpeare's time ; it had been made so to his hand, and of course it
became more so in his hand. Mr. Douce has shown, that in some
of its main incidents it bears a strong resemblance to an old Greek
romance by Xenophou of Ephesus, entitled " The Love-adven-
tures of Abrocomas and Anthia." The original author, however,
of the story as received in the Poet's time was Luigi da Porto,
of Vincenza, who died in 1529. His novel, called La Giulietta,
was first published in 1535, six years after his death. In an epis-
tle prefixed to the work, the author says that the story was told by
* an archer of mine, whose name was Peregrino, a man about fifty
years old, well-practised in the military art. a pleasant compauion,
and, like almost all his countrymen of Verona, a great talker."
Luigi's work was reprinted in 1539, and again in 1553. From him
the matter was borrowed and improved by Bandello, who pub-
lished it in 1554, making it the ninth novel in the second part of
his collection. Bandello represents the incidents to have occurred
when Bartholomew Scaliger was lord of Verona. And it may be
worth noting, that the Veronese, who believe the tale to be his-
torically true, fix its date in 1303, at which time the family of
Bcala or Scaliger held the rule of the city.

The story is next met with in the Histoires Tragiques of Belle-
forest. It makes the third piece in that collection ; and, as the
first six pieces were rendered into French by Boisteau, it follows
that this tale was translated by him, and not by Belleforest. The
HitioirtK Tragiques were professedly taken from Bandello, but
some of them vary considerably from the Italian ; as in this very
piece, according to Bandnllo, Juliet awakes from her trance in
time to hear Komeo speak and see him die, and then, instead of
•tabbing herself with his dagger, dies apparently of a broken

6 ROMEO AND JULIET.

heart ; whereas Boisteau has it the same in this respect as vre find
it in the play.

The earliest English version of the story, that has come dow:i
to us, is a poen entitled " The Tragical History of Romens and
Juliet," written oy Arthur Brooke, and published in 15f>2. This
purports to he from ihe Italian of Bandello, hut the French of
Boisteau was evidently made use of by Brooke, as his version
agrees with the French in making the heroine's trance continue til!
after the death of her lover. In some respects, however, the poem
is enf tied to the rank of an original work ; the author not tying
bimsc.f strictly to any known authority, but giving something of
freedom to his own invention. We say known authority, because
in his prose introduction Brooke informs us that the tale had al-
ready been put to work on the English stage. His words are as
follows : " Though I saw the same argument lately set forth on
the stage with more commendation than I can look for, yet the
same matter, penned as it is, may serve to like good effect, if the
readers do bring with them like good minds to consider it ; which
hath the more encouraged me to publish it, such as it is."

The only ancient reprint of Brooke's poem known to us was
made in 1587 ; though it was entered a second lime at the Sta-
tioners' in 1582. Malone set forth an edition of it in 1780 ; and
in our own time Mr. Collier has given a very careful and accurate
reprint of it in his Shakespeare's Library. In sentiment, imagery,
and versification, the poem has very considerable merit. It is
written in rhyme, the lines consisting, alternately, of twelve and
fourteen syllables. On the whole, it may rank among the best
specimens we have of the popular English literature of that period ;
being not so remarkable for reproducing the faults of the time, as
for rising above them.

Of Brooke himself very little is known. In a poetical address
" to the Reader," prefixed to the Tragical History, he speaks of
this as " my youthful work," and informs us that he had written
other works "in divers kinds of style." We learn, also, from the
body of the poem, that he was unmarried ; and in 1563 then: came
.out " An Agreement of sundry Places of Scripture," by Arthur
Brooke, with some verses prefixed by Thomas Brooke, informing
us that the author had perished by shipwreck. George Turher-
ville, also, in his Epitaphs and Epigrams. 1567, has one " On the
Death of Master Arthur Brooke, drowned in passing lo Newha-
ven ;" and mentions the story of Romeus and Juliet as proving
that he " for metre did excel."

In 1667, five years after the date of Brookt's poem, a prose
version of the same tale was published by William Paynter, in his
Palace of Pleasure, a collection of stories made from divers sources,
ancient and modern. Paynter calls it " The goodly History of
the true and constant love between Rhomeo and Julietta." It
U merely a l"*e al translation from the French of Boisteau, and 65

INTRODUCTION. 7

no means skilfully done, at that ; though even here the interesx of
ihe tale is such as to triumph over the bungling rudeness of the
translator. This version, also, has been lately reprinted by Mr.
Collier in the work mentioned above.

These two are the only English forms, of an earlier date than
the tragedy, in which (he storv has reached us. But the contem-
porary references to it are such and so many as to show that it
must have stood very high in popular favour. For instance, a
brief argument of the tale is given by Thomas Dfilapeend in his
Pleasant Fable of Hermaphroditus and Salmaois, 1565; and Bar-
nabe Rich, in his Dialogue between Mercury and a Soldier, 1574,
says that the story was so well known as to be represented on
tapestry. Allusions to it are also found in The Gorgeous Gallery
of Gallant Inventions, 1578 ; in A Poor Knight's Palace of Pri-
vate Pleasure, 1579; and in Austin Saker's Narbonus, 1580. Af-
ter this time, such notices become still more frequent and partic-
ular ; and the Stationers' books show an entry of " A new Ballad
of Romeo and Juliet," by Edward White, in 1596 ; of which, how
ever, nothing has been discovered in modern times.

This popularity was doubtless owing in a large measure to the
use of the story in dramatic form. We have already found that
Brooke had seen it on the stage before 1562. That so great and
general a favourite should have been suffered to leave (lie boards
after having once tried its strength there, is nowise probable : so
that we may presume it to have been kept at home on the stage
In one shape or another, till Shakespeare took it in hand, and so
far eclipsed all who had touched it before, that their labours were
left to perish.

Whether Shakespeare availed himself of any preceding drama
on the subject, we are of course without the means of knowing.
Nor, in fact, can we trace a connection between the tragedy and
any other work except Brooke's poem. That he made consider-
able use of this, is abundantly certain, as may be seen from divers
verbal resemblances set forth in our notes. That he was acquaint-
ed with Paynter's version, is indeed more than probable ; but we
can discover no sign of his having resorted to it for the matter of
his scenes, as the play has nothing in common with this, hut what
this also has in common with the poem. On the other hand, be-
sides the verbal resemblances set forth in our notes, the play agrees
with Brooke in divers particulars where Brooke differs from Payn-
ter. The strongest instance, perhaps, of this is in the part of the
Nurse, which is considerably extended in the poem : especially,
sl.e there endeavours, as in the play, to persuade Juliet into the
marriage with Paris ; of which there is no trace in the prose ver-
sion. Moreover, the character of the Nurse has in the poem a
dash of original humour, approaching somewhat, though not much,
towards the Poet's representation of her. As regards the inci-
dents, the only differences worth noting between the poem ;ind the

ROMEO AND JULIET.

play fire in the death of Mercutio, and in the meeting- of lloineo
and Paris, and the death of the latter, at the tomb of Juliet.

The play was first printed in 1597. with a title-page reading as
follows : " An excellent-conceited Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet :
As it hafh been often, with great applause, played publicly, by the
Right Honourable the Lord of Hunsdon his Servants. London :
Printed by John Danter. 1597." Here we have one point worth
special noting. Until the accession of James, the company to
which Shakespeare belonged were, as we have repeatedly seen,
called " the Lord Chamberlain's Servants." Henry Lord Huns-
don, Lord Chamberlain, died on the 22d of July, 1596. George,
(he successor to his title, did not immediately succeed to the office :
this was conferred on Lord Cobham, who held it till his death, in
March, 1597 ; and the new Lord Hunsdon did not become Lord
Chamberlain till the 17th of April. It was only during this inter-
val that the company in question were known as the Lord Huns-
don's Servants. Malone hence concludes that the play was first
performed between July, 1596, and April, 1597 ; but this is hy no
means certain ; it merely proves that the play was printed during
that period : for, however the company may have been designated
at the first acting of the play, they would naturally have been
spoken of in the title-page as the Lord Huusdon's Servants, if
they were so known at the time of the printing.

Another question, that may as well be disposed of here, is,
whether the first issue of Romeo and Juliet was authentic and
complete, as the play then stood ; which question is best answered
by Mr. Collier. "This edition," says he. "is in two different types,
and was probably executed in haste by two different printers. I*
has bren generally treated as an authorised impression from ai
authentic manuscript. Such, after the most careful examination
is not our opinion. We think that the manuscript used by the
printer or printers was made up, partly from portions of the play
as it was acted, but unduly obtained, and partly from notes taken
at the theatre during representation. Our principal ground for
this notion is, that there is such great inequality in different scenes
and speeches, and in some places precisely that degree and kind
of iir.j>crfectness, which would belong to manuscript prepared from
defective short-hand notes. We do not of course go the length
of contending that Shakespeare did not alter and improve the play,
mbsequent to its earliest production on the stage ; but merely that
the quarto of 1597 does not contain the tragedy as it was originally
represented."

The next issue of the play was in a quarto pamphlet of 46
.eaves, the title-page reading thus : "The most excellent and lam-
entable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, newly corrected, augment-
ed, and amended : As it hath been sundry times publ'-cly acted by
the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlain his Servants. Lon-
don : Printed by Thomas Creede for Cuthbert Burby, and are to

INTRODUCTION. 9

l>e sold at his shop near the Exchange. 1599." There was a
third quarto issue in 1609, which was merely a reprint of the fore-
going, save that in the title-page we have, " acted by ihe King's
Majesty's Servants at the Globe," and, " Printed for John Smeth-
wirk, and are to be sold at his shop in St. Dunstan's Churchyard,
in Fleet-street, under the Dial." There was also a fourth edition
in quarto, undated, but probably issued between 1609 and 1623.
The folio of 1623 gives it as the fourth in the division of Trage-
dies, and without any marking of the acts and scenes, save that
at the beginning we have, " Actus Primus. Sccena Prima."
The folio, though omitting several passages found in the quarto
of 1609, is shown, by the repetition of certain typographical errors,
to have been printed from that copy. In our text, as in that of
most modern editions, the quarto of 1599 is taken as the basis,
and the other old copies drawn upon for the correction of errors,
and sometimes for a choice of readings ; in both which respects
the quarto of 1597 is of great value. Our variations from the
second quarto are duly specified in the notes.

As may well be supposed, the second issue evinces a consider-
ably stronger and riper authorship than the first; for of course the
Poet would hardly proceed to rewrite the play until he thought
that he could mak< important changes for the better. How much
the play was " aiijjmented " may be judged from the fact that in
Steevens' reprint of the editions of 1597 and i609, both of which
are in the same volume and the same type, the first occupies only
73 pages, the other 99. The augmentations are much more im
portant in quality than in quantity ; and both these and the cor-
rections show a degree of judgment and tact hardly consistent
with the old notion of the Poet having been a careless writer ;
though it is indeed much to he regretted that he did not carry his
older and severer hand into some parts of the play, which he left
in their original stale. In our notes will be found a few passages
— especially Juliet's speech on taking the sleeping-draught, in Act
iv. sc. 3, and Romeo's speech just before he swallows the poison,
in Act v. sc. 3, — as they stand in the quarto of 1597 ; from which
the reader may form some judgment of the difference between the
original and amended copies in respect of quality. The same may
be said of Juliet's soliloquies in Act ii. sc. 5, and in Act iii. sc. 2;
which, particularly the latter, are comparatively nothing, as given
in the first edition.

The date more commonly assigned for the writing of this trage-
dy is 1596. This is allowing only a space of about two years
between the writing and rewriting of the play ; and we fully agree
with Knight and Verplanck, that the second edition shows such a
measure of progress in judgment, in the cast of thought, and in
dramatic power, as would naturally infer a much longer interval.
And the argument derived from this circumstance is strengthened

10 ROMEO AND JULIET.

by another piece of internal evidence. The Nurse, in reckoning
np ihe age of Juliet, has the following1 :

" On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen ;
That shall she, marry : I remember it well.
'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years ;
And she was wean'd, — I never shall forget it, —
Of all the days of the year, upon that day.
Shake, quoth the dove-house : 'twas no need, I trow,
To bid me trudge.

And since that time it is elev in years ;
For then she could stand alone ; nay, by the rood,
She could have run and waddled all about ;
For even the day before she broke her brow."

This passage was first pointed out by Tyrwhitt as probably 10
ferring to a very memorable event thus spoken of by the English
chronicler of that period : "On the 6th of April, 1580, being Wednes-
day in Easter week, about 6 o'clock toward evening, a sudden
earthquake happening in London, and almost generally throughout
all England, caused such amazedness among the people as was
wonderful for the time." There are indeed discrepancies in what
the Nurse says, that more or less dash the certainty of the allusion.
First, she says that Juliet was not weaned, then, proud of " bear-
ing a brain," gets entangled in her reminiscent garrulity, and at
last ties up in the remembrance that she could talk and " waddle
all about;" but yet she sticks to the "eleven years." It is not
so much, therefore, to what was in her thoughts, as to what was
in theirs for whom the speech was written, that we must look for
the bearing of the allusion.

Now, at the time of the event in question, the great clock at
Westminster, and divers other clocks and bells struck of them-
selves with the shaking of the earth : the lawyers supping in the
Temple ran from their tables and out of the balls, with the knives
in their hands : the people assembled at the theatres rushed forth
into the fields, lest the galleries should fall : the roof of Christ
church near Newgate-market was so shaken, that a stone dropped
out of !', killing two persons, it being sermon time : chimneys were
topp ea down, and houses shattered. All which circumstances
w«re well adapted to keep the event fresh in popular remembrance;
and it was with this remembrance, most likely, that the Poet main
ly concerned himself. We give the rest of the argument in the
words of Knight : " Shakespeare knew the double world in which
an excited audience lives ; the half belief in the world of poetry
amongst which they are placed during a theatrical representation,
and the half consciousness of the external world of their oidinarj
life. The ready disposition of every audience to make a tran-
sition from the scene befcre them to the scene in which thej ordi

INTRODUCTION. 1 1

nanly move, is perfectly well known to all who are acquainted
with the machinery of the drama. In the case before us, even if
Shakespeare had not this principle in view, the association of the
English earthquake must have been strongly in his mind, when he
made the Nurse date from an earthquake. Without reference to
the circumstance of Juliet's age. he would naturally, dating from
the earthquake, have made the date refer to the period of his writ-
ing the passage, inst?ad of the period of Juliet's being weaned.
But, according to the Nurse's chronology, Juliet had not arrived
at that epoch in the lives of children, till she was three years old.
The very contradiction shows that Shakespeare had another ob-
ject in view than that of making the Nurse's chronology tally with
the age of her nursling."

This of course would throw the original writing of the play back
to the year 1591, or thereabouts, and so give ample time for the
growth of mind indicated by the additions and improvements of
the second issue. However, we do not regard the argument from
the Nurse's speech as conclusive ; for, even granting the Poet to
have had his thoughts on the particular earthquake in question, it
does not follow that he would have made the Nurse perfectly ac-
curate in her reckoning of time. It may be worth observing, in
this connection, that there appears some little remembrance, one
way or the other, between the play and Daniel's Complaint of
Rosamond, published in 1592. The passage from Daniel is given
in Act v. sc. 3, note 7 ; so that it need not be quoted here. It
will be seen, from the preceding note, that, except in one slight
particular, the resemblances both of thought and expression are
not found in the oldest copy of the play. Nor even in that par-
ticular is the resemblance so close as to infer any more acquaint-
ance than might well enough have been formed by the ear ; and
Daniel was a man of theatrical tastes. So that this does not
necessarily make against 1591 as Shakespeare's true date ; though
whether Daniel first improved upon him, and then he upon Daniel,
or whether the original writing of the play was not till after the
printing of the poem, cannot with certainty be affirmed.

At all events, we are quite satisfied, from many, though for the
most part undefinable, tricks of style, that the tragedy in its origi-
nal state was produced somewhere between 1591 and 1595. The
cast of thought and imagery, but especially the large infusion, not
to 88v preponderance, of the lyrical element, naturally associates
it to ine same stage of art and authorship which gave us A Mid-
summer-Night's Dream. The resemblance of the two plays in
these respects is too strong and clear, we think, to escape any
studious eye, well-practised in discerning the Poet's different
styles. And a diligent comparison of Romeo and Juliet with, foi
example, the poetical scenes in the First Part of King Henry IV.,
which was published in 1598, will suffice for the conclusion that
'.he former must have been written several years before the latter.

12 ROMEO AXT> JULIET.

We have seen that nearly all the incidents of the tragedy were
borrowed, the Poet's invention herein being confined to the duel
of Mercutio and Tybalt, and the meeting of Romeo and Paris at
Ihe tomb. In the older English versions of the story, there is a
general fight between the partisans of the two houses ; when, af-
ter many have been killed and wounded on both sides, Romeo
comes in, tries in vain to appease with gentle words the fur}' of
Tybalt, and at last kills him in self-defence. What a vast gain
of dramatic life and spirit is made by Shakespeare's change in
this point, is too obvious to need insisting on. Much of a certain
amiable grace, also, is reflected upon Paris from the circumstances
ihat occasion his death ; and the character of the heroine is pro-
portionably raised by the beauty and pathos thus shed around
her second lover ; there being, in the older versions, a cold and
selfish policy in his love-making, which dishonours both himself
and the object of it. The judicious bent of the Poet's invention is
the more apparent in these particulars, that in the others he did but
reproduce what he found in Brooke's poem. Moreover, the inci-
dents, throughout, are disposed and worked out with all imagi-
nable skill for dramatic effect ; so that what was before a compar-
atively lymphatic and lazy narrative is made redundant of ani-
mation and interest.

In respect of character, too, the play has little of formal ongi
nality beyond Mercutio and the Nurse ; though all are indeed set
forth with a depth and vigour and clearness of delineation to
which ihe older versions of the. tale can make no pretension. It
scarce need be said, that the two characters named are, in the
Poet's workmanship, as different as can well be conceived from
any thing that was done to his hand. But what is most worthy
of remark, here, is, that he just inverts the relation between the
incidents and the characterisation, using the former merely to sup-
port the latter, instead of being supported by it. Before, the per-
sons served but as a sort of frame-work for the story ; here, the
story is made to serve but as canvas for the portraiture of char
Ader. So that, notwithstanding the large borrowings of incident
and character, the play, as a whole, has eminently the stamp of an
original work ; and, which is more, an acquaintance with the
sources drawn upon nowise diminishes our impression of its origi-
nality.

Before proceeding further, we must make some abatement*
from the indiscriminate praise which this drama has of late re-
ceived. For criticism, in its natural and just reaction from the
mechanical methods formerly in vogue, has run to the opposite
extreme of unreserved special-pleading, and of hunting out of
nature after reasons for unqualified approval ; by which course it
stultifies itself without really helping the subject. Now, we can-
not deny, and care not to disguise, that in several places this play
is sadly blemished with ingenious and elaborate affectations. We

INTRODUCTION. 1H

lefer not now to the conceits which Romeo indulges in so freclj
before his meeting with Juliet ; for, in his then stale of mind, such
self centred and fantastical eddy ings of thought may be not al-
logetlier without reason, as proceeding not from genuine passion,
l.ut rather from the want of it : he may be excused for plnying
with these little smoke-wreaths of fancy, forasmuch as the true
flame is not yet kindled in his heart. But, surely, this excuse will
not serve for those which are vented so profusely by the heroine
even 111 her most impassioned moments ; as, especially, in her
dialogue with the Nurse in the second scene of Act iii. Yet
Knight boldly justifies these, calling them " the results of strong
emotion, seeking to relieve itself by a violent effort of the intel-
lect, that the will may recover its balance." Which is either a
jiiece of forced and far-fetched attorneyship, or else it is too deep
lor our comprehension. No. no ! these things are plain disfigure-
ments and blemishes, and criticism will best serve its proper end
hy calling them so. And if there be any sufficient apology for
them, doubtless it is this, — That they grew from the general cus-
tom and conventional pressure of the time, and were written be-
fore the Poet had by practice and experience worked himself above
these into the original strength and rectitude of his genius. And
we submit, that any unsophisticated criticism, however broad and
liberal, will naturally regard them as the effects of imitation, not
of mental character, because they are plainly out of keeping with
the general style of the piece, aud strike against the grain of the
sentiment which that style inspires.

Bating certain considerable drawbacks on this score, — and the
fault disappears after Act iii.. — the play gives the impression of
having been all conceived aud struck out in the full heal and glow
of youthful passion ; as if the Poet's genius were for the time
thoroughly possessed with the spirit and temper of the subject, so
that every thing becomes touched with its efficacy ; — while at the
same time the passion, though carried to the utmost intensity, is
every where so pervaded with the light and grace of imagination,
that it kindles but to ennoble and exalt. For richness of poetical
colouring, — poured out with lavish hand indeed, but yet so man-
aged as not to interfere either with the development of character
or the proper dramatic effect, but rather to heighten them both, —
it may challenge a comparison with any of the Poet's dramas.

It is this intense passion, acting through the imagination, that
gives to the play its remarkable unity of effect. On this point,
Coleridge has spoken with such rare felicity that his words ought
always to go with the subject. " That law of unity," says he,
" which has its foundations, not in the factitious necessity of cus
torn, but in nature itself, the unity of feeling, is everywhere and
at all times observed by Shakespeare in his plays. Read Romeo
and Juliet : — all is youth and spring; — youth with its follies, its
virtues, its precipitancies ; — spring with its odours, its fl'»wer»

14 ROMKO AND JULIET.

and its transiency, — it is one and tlie same feeling thai com
inences.goes through, and ends the play. The old men, thcCapuletj
and the Montagues, are not common old men ; they bave an eager-
ness, a heartiness, a vehemence, the effect of spring : with Romeo,
his change of passion, his sudden marriage, and his rash dpalh,
are all the effects of youth ; — whilst in Juliet love has all that is
tender and melancholy in the nightingale, all that is voluptuous in
the rose, with whatever is sweet in the freshness of spring ; hut it
ends with a long deep sigh, like the last breeze of the Italian
evening. This unity of feeling and character pervades every
drama of Shakespeare."

In accordance with the principles here suggested, we find every
thing on the run ; all the passions of the drama are in (he same
fiery-footed and unmanageable excess : the impatient vehemence
of old Capulet. the furious valour of Tybalt, the brilliant volubil-
ity of Mercutio. the petulant loquacity of the Nurse, being all but
so many symptoms of the reigning irritability and impetuosity.
Amid this general stress of impassioned life, old animosities are
rekindled, old feuds have broken out anew ; while the efforts of
private friendship and public authority to quench the strife onlv go
to prove it unquenchable, the same violent passions that have
caused the tumults being brought to the suppression of them.
The prevalence of extreme hate serves of course to generate the
opposite extreme ; out of the most passionate and fatal enmities
there naturally springs a love as passionate and fatal. VV'th dis-
positions too gentle and iiohle to share in the animosities so rife
about them, the hearts of the lovers are but rendered thereby the
•nore alive and open to impressions of a contrary nature ; the
tierce rancour of their houses only swelling1 in them the emotions
that prevent their sympathising with it.

In this way, both the persons and the readers of the drama are
prepared for the forthcoming issues : the leading passion, intense
as it is. being so associated with others of equal intensity, that we
receive it without any sense of disproportion to nature ; whereas,
if cut out of the harmony in which it exists, it would seem over-
wrought and incredible. Thus the Poet secures continuity of im-
pression, and carries us smoothly along through all the aching
joys and giddy transports of the lovers, by his manner of dispos-
ing the objects and persons about them. And he does this with
so much ease as not to betray his exertions ; his means are hidden
in the skill with which he uses them ; and we forget the height to
which he soars, because he has the strength of wing to bear us
along with him, or rather gives us wings to rise with him of our-
selves.

Not the least considerable feature of this drama is, how, by
divers little showings, we are let into the genera) condition of life
where the scene is laid, and how this again is made to throw lighl
on tb« main action. We see before us a mo it artificial and un-

INTRODUCTION. 15

wealthy state of *.ocie!y, where all the safety-valves of nature are
closed up by an oppressive conventionality, and where the better
passions, being clogged down to their source, have turned their
strength into the worse ; men's antipathies being the more violent,
because no free play is given to their sympathies. Principle and
impulse are often spoken of as opposed to each other ; and, as
men are, such is indeed too often the case : but in ingenuous na-
tures and in well-ordered societies the two grow forth together,
each serving to unfold and deepen the other, so that principle getn
warmed into impulse, and impulse fixed into principle. \Vhea
such is the case, the state of man is at peace and unity; other-
wise, he is a house divided against itself, where principle and im-
pulse strive each for the mastery, and sway by turns ; headlong
and sensual in his passions, cunning and selfish in his reason.

Now, this fatal divorce of reason and passion is strongly ap
parent in the condition of life here reflected. The generous im-
pulses of nature are overborne and stifled by a discipline of self-
ishness. Coldly calsulative where they ought to be impassioned,
people are of course blindly passionate where they ought to be
deliberate and cool. Even marriage is plainly stripped of its
gacredness, made an affair of expediency, not of affection, inso-
much that a previous union of hearts is discouraged, lest it should
interfere with a prudent union of hands. So that we have a state
of society, where the hearts of the young are, if possible, kept
sealed against all deep and strong impressions, and the develop-
ment of the nobler impulses foreclosed by the icy considerations
of interest and policy.

Amidst this heart-withering refinement, the hero and the heroine
stand out the unschooled and unspoiled creatures of native sense
and sensibility. Art has tried its utmost upon them, but nature
has proved too strong for it : in the silent creativeness of youth
their feelings have insensibly matured themselves ; and they come
before us glowiugwilh the warmth of natural sentiment, with sus-
ceptibilities deep as life, and waiting only for the kindling touch
of passion. So that they exemplify the simplicity of nature
thriving amidst the most artificial manners : nay, they are th*
more natural for the excess of art around them ; as if nature,
driven from the hearts of others, had taken refuge in theirs.

Principle, however, is as strong in them as passion ; they have
the purity as well as the impulsiveness of nature ; and because
they are free from immodest desires, they therefore put forth no
angelic pretensions. Idolizing each other, they would, however,
make none but permitted offerings. Not being led by the con-
ventionalities of life, they therefore are not to be misled by them •
as their hearts are joined in mutual love, so their hands must be
omed in mutual honour ; for, while loving each other with a love
as boundless as the sea, they at the sail : time love in each othei
whatsoever is precious and heavenly in their mi-soiled imaginations

1<> ROMEO AND JULIET.

Thus (heir fault lies not in the nature of their passion, hut in its
excess, — that they love each other in a degree that is due only to
(heir Maker ; but this is a natural reaction from that idolatrj of
interest and of self which pervades the rest of society, turning
marring* into merchandise, and sacrificing the holiest instincts of
nature to avarice, ambition, and pride.

The lovers, it is true, are not much given to reflection, because
this is a thing that cannot come to them legitimately but by ex-
perience, which they are yet without. Life lies glittering with
golden hopes before them, owing all its enchantment, perhaps, to
distance : if their bliss seems perfect, it is only because their
bounty is infinite; but such bounty and such bliss "may not with
mortal man abide." Bereft of the new life they have found in
each other, nothing remains for them but the bitter dregs from
which the wine has all evaporated ; and they dash to earth the
stale and vapid draught, when it has lost all the spirit that caused
it to foam and sparkle before them. Nevertheless, it is not their
passion, but the enmity of their houses, that is punished in their
death ; and the awful lesson read in their fate is against that bar-
barism of civilization, which makes love excessive by trying to
erclude it from its rightful place in life, and which subjects men
lo the just revenges of nature, because it puts them upon thwart-
ing her noblest purposes. Were we deep in the wavs of Prov-
idence, we might doubtless anticipate from the first, that ihese two
beings, the pride and hope of their respective friends, would, even
because themselves most innocent, fall a sacrifice to the guilt of
their families ; and that in and through their death would be pun-
ished and healed those fatal strifes and animosities which have
made it at once so natural and so dangerous for them to love.

It has been aptly remarked, that the hero and heroine of this
play, though in love, are not love-sick. Romeo, however, is
something love-sick before his meeting with Juliet. His seeming
love for Rosaline is but a matter of fancy, with which the heart
has little or nothing to do. That the Poet so meant it, is plain
from what is said about it in the Chorus at the end of Act i. Ac-
cordingly, it is airy, affected, and fantastical, causing him to think
much of his feelings, to count over his sighs, and play with lan-
guage, as a something rather generated from within than inspired
from without : his thoughts are not so much on Rosaline or any
thing he has found in her, as on a figment of his own mind, which
he has baptised into her name and invested with her form. This
is just the sort of love with which people often imagine them-
selves about to die, £ut which they always manage to survive, and
that, without any further harm than the making them somewhat
ridiculous. Romeo's love is a thing infinitely different. A mere
idolater, Juliet converts him into a true worshipper ; and the fire
of his new passion burns up the old idol of his fancy. Love
works a sort of regeneration upon him : his dreamy, sentimental

INTRODUCTION. 17

fancy giving place to a passion that interests him thoroughly in
an external fbject, all his fine energies are forthwith tuned into
narmouy and eloquence, so that he becomes a true man, with
every thing clear and healthy and earnest about him. As the
Friar suggests, it was probably from an instinctive sense of liis
>• elf-delusion, and that he made love by rote and not by heart,
that Rosaline rejected his suit. The dream, though, has the effect
of preparing him for the reality, while the contrast between them
Heightens our appreciation of the latter.

Hazlitt pronounces Romeo to be Hamlet in love; than which
he could not well have made a greater mistake. In all that most
truly constitutes character, the two, it seems to us, have nothing
in common. To go no further, Hamlet is all procrastination, Ro-
meo all precipitancy : the one reflects away the time of action,
and loses the opportunity in getting ready for it ; the other, pliant
to impulse, and seizing the opportunity at once, or making it, acts
first, and then reflects on what he has done, not on what he has to
do. With Hamlet, it is a necessity of nature to think ; with Ro-
meo, to love : the former, studious of consequences, gets entan-
gled with a multitude of conflicting passions and purposes ; the
latter, absorbed in one passion and one purpose, drives right ahead
icgardless of consequences. It is this necessity of loving that,
until the proper object appears, creates in Romeo an object for
itself: hence the love-bewilderment in which he first comes before
as. Which explains and justifies the suddenness and vehemence
of his passion, while the difference between this and his fancy-
sickness amply vindicates him from the reproach of inconstancy

Being of passion all compact, Romeo of course does not gen-
eralize, nor give much heed to abstract truth : intelligent indeed
of present objects and occasions, he does not, however, study to
shape his feelings or conduct by any rules : he therefore sees no
use of philosophy in his case, unless it can make a Juliet ; nor
does he care to hear others speak of what they do not feel. He
has no life but passion, and passion lives altogether in and by its
object : therefore it is that he dwells with such wild exaggeration
on the sentence of banishment. Thus his love, by reason of its
excess, exalting a subordinate into a sovereign good, defeats its
own security and peace.

Yet there is a sort of instinctive rectitude in his passion, which
makes us rather pity than blame its excess ; and we feel that death
comes upon him through it. not for it. We can scarce conceivn
any thing more full of manly sweetness and gentleness than his
character. Love is the only thing wherein he seems to lack self-
control, and this is the very thing wherein self-control is least a
virtue. He will risk his life for a friend, but he will not do a mean
thing to save it ; has no pride and revenge to which he would sac-
rifice others, but has high and brave affections to which he will not
sbr'uk from sacrificing himself. Thus even in h:s resentments he

18 ROMEO AND JULIET.

is in nohle contrast with those about him. His heart is so pre-
occupied with generous thought as to afford no room for those
furious transports which prove so fatal in others : where their
swords jump in wild fury from their scabbards, his sleeps quietlv
by his side ; but then, as he is very hard to provoke, so is he very
dangerous when provoked.

Mr. Hallum — a man who weighs his words well before pro-
nouncing them — gives as his opinion, that "it is impossible to
place Juliet among the great female characters of Shakespeare's
creation." Other critics of high esteem, especially Mrs. Jameson,
take a different view ; but this may result, in part, from the rep-
resentation being so charged, not to say overcharged, with poetic
warmth and brilliancy, as to hinder a cool and steady judgment
of the character. For the passion in which Juliet lives is most
potently infectious ; one can scarce venture near enough to see
what and whence it is, without falling under its influence; while
in her case it is so fraught with purity ai:d tenderness, and self
forgetting ardour and constancy, and has so much, withal, that
challenges a respectful pity, that the moral sense does not easily
find where to fix its notes of reproof. And if in her intoxication
of soul and sense she loses whatsoever of reason her youth and
inexperience can have gathered, the effect is breathed forth with
an energy and elevation of spirit, and in a transporting affluence
of thought and imagery, which none but the sternest readers can
well resist, and which, after all, there may not be much virtue in
resisting.

We have to confess, however, that Juliet appears something
better as a heroine than as a woman, the reverse of which com-
monly holds in the Poet's delineations. But she is a real heroine,
in the best sense of the term ; her womanhood being developed
through her heroism, not eclipsed or obscured by it. Wherein
she differs from the general run of tragic heroines, who act as if
they knew not how to be heroic, without unsexing themselves, and
becoming something mannish or viraginous : the trouble with them
being, that they set out with a special purpose to be heroines, and
study to approve themselves such ; whereas Juliet is surprised
into heroism, and acts the heroine without knowing it, simply be-
cause it is in her to do so, and. when the occasion comes, she can-
not do otherwise.

It is not till the marriage with Paris is forced upon her, that
the proper heroism of her nature displays itself. All her feelings
as a wiman, a lover, and a wife, are then thoroughly engaged ;
and because her heart is all truth, therefore she cannot but choose
rather to die "an unstain'd wile to her sweet love," than to live
on any other terms. To avert what is to her literally an injinitt
evil, she appeals imploringly to her father, her mother, and the
Nurse, in succession ; nor is it till she is cast entirely on her own
strength that she finds herself sufficient for herself. There is

INTRODUCTION. 19

something truly fearful in the resolution and energy of her dis-
course with the Friar ; yet we feel that she is still the same soft,
tender, gentle being whose breath was lately so rich and sweet
with words of love. When told the desperate nature of the rem-
edy, she rises to a yet higher pitch, her very terror of the deed
inspiring her with fresh energy of purpose. And when she comes
to tne performance, she cannot indeed arrost the workings of her
imagination, neither can those workings shake her resolutions on
the contrary, in their reciprocal action each adds vigour and in-
lens'ty to the other, the terrific images which throng upon her ex
cited fancy developing within her a strength and courage to face
them. In all which there is certainly much of the heroine, hut
then the heroism is the free, spontaneous, unreflecting outcome of
her native womanhood.

It is well worth noting, with what truth to nature the different
qualities of the female character are in this representation distrib-
uted. Juliet has both the weakness and the strength of woman,
and she has them in the right, that is, the natural places. For, if
she appears as frail as the frailest of her sex in the process of
becoming a lover, her frailty ends with that process : weak in
yielding to the first touch of passion, all her strength of character
comes out in courage and constancy afterwards. Thus it is in
the cause of the wife that the greatness proper to her as a woman
transpires. Moore, in his Life of Byron, speaks of this as a pe-
culiarity of the Italian women ; but surely it is nowise peculiar to
them, save that they may have it in a larger measure than others.
For, if we mistake not, the general rule of women everywhere is,
that the easiest to fall in love are the hardest to get out of it, and
at the same time the most religiously tenacious of their honour
in it.

It is very considerable that Juliet, though subject to the same
necessity of loving as Romeo, is nevertheless quite exempt from
the delusions of fancy, and therefore never gets bewildered with
a love of her own making. The elements of passion in her do
not, it is against her nature that they should, act in such a way as
to send her in quest of an object : indeed they are a secret even
ti> herself, she suspects not their existence, till the proper object
appears, because it is the inspiration of that object that kindles
•Jiem into efiect. — Her modesty, too, is much like Romeo's hon-
our ; that is, it is a living attribute of her character, and not merely
a form impressed upon her manners from without. She therefore
does not try to conceal or disguise from herself the impulses of her
nature, because she justly regards them as sanctified by the re-
.igion of her heart. On this point, especially with reference to
her famous soliloquy at the beginning of the second scene in Aet
Vi., we leave her in the hands of Mrs. Jameson ; who, with a rare
gift to see what is right, joins an equal felicity in expressing what
she sees. " Let it be remembered," says she, " that in this speech

20 ROMEO AND JULIET.

Juliet is not supposed to he addressing an audience, nor even a
confidante ; and I confess I have been shocked at the utter want
of taste and refinement in those who, with coarse derision, or in a
spirit of prudery yet more gross and perverse, have dared to
comment on this beautiful ' Hymn to the Night,' breathed out by
Juliet in the silence and solitude of her chamber. She is think-
ing aloud; it is the young heart 'triumphing to itself in words.'
In the midst of all the vehemence with which she calls upon the
night to bring Romeo to her arms, there is something so almost
infantine in her perfect simplicity, so playful and fantastic in the
imagery and language, that the charm of sentiment and inn<~?ence
id thrown over the whole ; and her impatience, to use her own ex-
pression, is truly that of ' a child before a festival, that hath new
robes and may not wear them.' "

The Nurse is in some respects another edition of Mrs. Quickly,
though in a different binding. The character has a tone of reality
that almost startles us on a first acquaintance. She gives the im-
pression of a literal transcript from actual life ; which is doubtless
owing in part to the predominance of memory in her mind, caus-
ing her to think and speak of things just as the}1 occurred ; as in
her account of Juliet's age, where she cannot go on without bring-
ing in all the accidents and impertinences which stand associated
with the subject. And she has a way of repeating the same thing
in the same words, so that it strikes us as a fact cleaving to hei
thoughts, and exercising a sort of fascination over them : it seems
scarce possible that any but a real person should be so enslaved
to actual events.

This general passiveness to what is going on about her natural
ly makes her whole character "smell of the shop." And she has
a certain vulgarized air of rank and refinement, as if, priding her-
self on the confidence of her superiors, she had caught and assim-
ilated their manners to her own vulgar nature. In this mixture
of refinement and vulgarity, both elements are made the worse tor
being together ; for, like all those who ape their betters, she ex-
aggerates whatever she copies ; or, borrowing the proprieties of
those above her, she turns them into their opposite, because she
uas no serue of propriety. Without a particle of truth, or honour,
or delicacy ; one to whom life has no sacredness, virtue no beauty,
Icve no holiness ; a woman, in short, without womacjood 5 she
abounds, however, in serviceable qualities ; has just that low ser-
vile prudence which at once fits her to be an instrument, and makes
fler proud to be used as such. Yet she acts not so much from a
^ositive disregard of right as from a lethargy of conscience ; 01
us if her soul had run itself into a sort of moral dry-rot through
a leak at the mouth.

Accordingly, in her basest acts she never dreams but that she
it a pattern of virtue. And because she is thus unconscious and,
as it were, innocent of her own vices, therefore Juliet thinks hei

INTRODUCTION. 5i

free from them, and suspects not hut that Deneath her petulant,
vulgar loquacity she has a vein of womanly honour and sensibility
For she has, in her way, a real affection for Juliet; whatsoever
would give pleasure to herself, that she will do any thing to com-
pass for her young mistress ; and, until love and marriage becoim
the question, there has never been any thing to disclose the essen-
tial oppugnancy of their natures. When, however, in her noble
agouy, Juliet appeals to the Nurse for counsel, and is met with the
advice to marry Paris, she sees at once what her soul is made of j
that her former praises of Romeo were but the offspring of a sen-
fual pruriency easing itself with talk ; that in her long life she has
ja'ned only that sort of experience which works the debasement
of its possessor ; and that she knows less than nothing of love
and marriage, because she has worn their prerogatives without any
feeling of their sacredness.

Mercutio is one of the instances which strikingly show the ex-
cess of Shakespeare's powers above his performances. Though
giving us more than any other man, he still seems lo have given
but a small part of himself ; for we see not but he could have gone
on indefinitely revelling in (he same "exquisite ebullience and over-
flow" of life and wit which he has started in Mercutio. As seek-
ing rather to instruct us with character than to entertain us with
talk, he lets off" just enough of the latter to disclose the former,
and then stops, leaving the impression of an inexhaustible abun-
dance withheld to give scope for something better. From the na-
ture of the subject, he had to leave unsatisfied the desire which in
Mercutio is excited. Delightful as Mercutio is, the Poet valued
and makes us value his room more than his company. It has
been said that he was obliged to kill Mercutio, lest Mercutio should
kill him. And certainly it is not easy to see how he could have
kept Mercutio and Tybalt in the play without spoiling it, nor how
he could have kept them out of it without killing them : for, so
long as they live, they seem bound to have a chief hand in what-
soever is going on about them ; and they cannot well have a hand
i any thing without turning it, the one into a comedy, the other
into a butchery. The Poet, however, so manages them aud their
fate as to aid rather than interrupt the proper interest of the piece ;
the impression of their death, strong as it is, being overcome by
the sympathy awakened in us with the living.

Mercutio is a perfect embodiment of animal spirits acting in and
through the brain. So long as the life is in him his blood must
dance, and so long as the blood dances the brain and tongue must
play. His veins seem filled with sparkling champagne. Always
revelling in the conscious fulness of his resources, he pours out
and pours out, heedless whether he speaks sense or nonsense )
nay. his very stumblings seem designed as triumphs of agility;
be studies, apparently, for failures, as giving occasion for further
trials, aud thus serving at once to provoke his skill atid to set it

22 ROMEO AND JULIET.

off. Full of the most companionable qualities, he .jften talks
loosely indeed, but not profanely ; and even in his loosest talk
there is a suhtilty and refinement both of nature and of breeding,
that mark him for the prince of good fellows. Nothing could more
6nely evince the essential frolicsomeness of his composition, than
that, with his ruling passion strong in death, he should play the
wag in the face of his grim enemy, as if to live and to jest were
the same thing with him.

Of Mercutio's wit it were vain to attempt an analysis. From
a fancy as quick and aerial as the Aurora Borealis, the most unique
and graceful combinations come forth with almost inconceivable
facility and felicity. If wit consists in a peculiar briskness, air-
iness, and apprehensiveness of spirit, catching, as bv instinct, the
most remote and delicate affinities, and putting things together
most unexpectedly and at the same time most appropriately, it
can hardly be denied that Mercutio is the prince of wits, as well
as of good fellows.

We have always fell a special comfort in the part of Friar Lau
rence. How finely his tranquillity contrasts with the surrounding
agitation! And how natural it seems that be should draw lessons
of tranquillity from that very agitation ! Calm, thoughtful, benev-
olent, withdrawing from the world, that he may benefit society the
more for being out of it, his presence and counsel in the play are
ss oil poured, yet poured in vain, on troubled waters. Sympa-
thising quietly yet deeply with the very feelings in others which
in the stillness of thought he has subdued in himself, the storms
(hat waste society only kindle in him the sentiments that raise him
above them ; while his voice, issuing from the heart of humanity,
speaks peace, but cannot give it, to the passions that are raging
around him.

Scblegel has remarked with his usual discernment on the skill
with which the Poet manages to alleviate the miracle of the sleep-
ing-potion ; and how, by throwing an air of mysterious wisdom
round the Friar, he renders us the more apt to believe strange
things concerning him ; representing him as so conjunctive and
private with nature, that incredulity touching what he does is in a
great measure forestalled by impressions of reverence for his char-
acter. •• How," says he, " does the Poet dispose us to believe
that Father Laurence possesses such a secret? He exhibits him
at first in a garden, collecting herbs, and descanting on their won-
derful virtues. The discourse of the pious old man is full of deep
meaning : he sees everywhere in nature emblems of the moral
world ; the same wisdom with which be looks through her has also
made him master of the human heart. In ihis way. what would
else have an ungrateful appearance, becomes the source of a great
beauty."

Much fault has been found with the winding-iip of this play, that
it does not Hop with the death of Juliet. Looking merely to the

INTRODUCTION. 23

ascs of the stage, it might indeed he better so ; hut Shakesoeare
wrote for humanity as well as, yea, rather than, for the stage.
And as the evil fate of the lovers springs from the bitter feud of
their houses and from a general Stirling of nature under a hard
crust of artificial manners, he wisely represents it as reacting upon
and removing the cause. We are thus given to see and feel that
they have not suffered in vain ; and the heart has something to
mitigate and humanise its over-pressure of grief. The absorbing,
devouring selfishness of society generates the fiercest rancour be-
twc-3n its leading families, and that rancour issues in the death of
the very members through whom they had thought most to advance
their rival pretensions ; earth's best and noblest creatures are
snatched away, because, by reason of their virtue, they can best
afford to die, and because, for the same reason, their death will be
most bitterly deplored. The good old Friar indeed thought that
by the marriage of the lovers the rancour of their houses would
be healed. But a Wiser than he knew that the deepest touch of
sorrow was required to awe and melt their proud, selfish hearts ;
that nothing short of the most afflicting bereavement, together with
the fpp'ing- that themselves had both caused it and deserved it,
could teach them rightly to "prize the breath they share with hu-
man kind," and remand them to the impassioned attachments of
nature. Accordingly, the hatred that seemed immortal is buried
in the tomb of the faithful lovers ; families are reconciled, society
renovated, by the storm that has passed upon them ; the tyranny
of selfish custom is rebuked and broken up by the insurrection of
nature which itself has provoked ; tears flow, hearts are softened
hands joined, truth, tenderness, and piety inspired, by the noble
example of devotion and self-sacrifice which stands before them.
Such is the sad bat wholesome lesson to be gathered from the
heart-rending storv of " Juliet and her Romeo."

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

ESCAI.US, Prince of Verona.

PARIS, a young Nobleman, his Kinsman.

MONTAGUE, ) TT , f . v. -ITI

p, ' > Heads of two hostile Houses.

An old Man, Uncle to Capulet.

ROMEO, Son to Montague.

MERCUTIO, Kinsman to Escalus, ) .-, • • D

BENVOLIO, Nephew to Montague, \ Fl

TYBALT, Nephew to Lady Capulet.

FRIAR LAURENCE, a Franciscan.

FRIAR JOHN, of the same Order.

BALTHAZAR, Servant to Romeo.

SAMPSON, } „ „ , A

GREGORY, [ Servants to CaPulet'

PETER, another Servant to Capulet.

ABR AM, Servant to Montague.

An Apothecary.

Three Musicians.

Chorus. A Boy, Page to Pans An Officer.

LADY MONTAGUE, Wife tc Montague.
LADY CAPULET. Wife to Capulet.
JULIET, Daughter to Capulet.
Nurse to Juliet.

Citizens of Verona ; male and female Relations to both
Houses ; Maskers, Guards, Watchmen, and Attendants.

SCENE, during the greater Part of the Play> in Verona 3
once, in the fifth Act, at Mantua.

THE TRAGEDY

OF

ROMEO AND JULIET.

PROLOGUE.1

Chorus. Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life ;
Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows
Do, with their death, bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could re-
move,

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage ;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

1 This Prologue is in all the quartos, though with considerable
variations in that of 1597. It was omitted in the folio, for reasons
unknown. The old copies represent it as spoken by Chonu ;
which means, no doubt, that it fell to the same performer as the
Chorus at the end of Act i. H.

26 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT 1

ACT I.

SCENE I. A public Place.

Enter SAMPSON and GREGORY, armed with Swords
and Bucklers.

Sam. GREGORY, o'my word, we'll not carry
coals.1

Gre. No, for then we should be colliers.

Sam. I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.

Gre. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out
o'the collar.

Sam. I strike quickly, being mov'd.

Gre. But thou art not quickly mov'd to strike.

Sam. A dog of the house of Montague moves me.

Gre. To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to
stand ; therefore, if thou art mov'd, thou runn'st
Hway.

Sam. A dog of that house shall move me to
stand. I will take the wall of any man or maid of
Montague's.

Gre. That shows thee a weak slave ; for the
weakest goes to the wall.

Sam. True; and therefore women, being the
weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall : — there-

1 To carry coals is to pitt up with insults. Anciently, in great
families, the scullions, turnspits, and carriers of wood and coals
were esteemed the very lowest of menials. Such attendants upon
the royal household, in progresses, were called the black-guard ;
and hence the origin of that term. Thus in May Day, a Comedy
by Chapman, 1608 : "You must swear by no man's beard but
your own ; for that may breed a quarrel : above all things, you
must carry no coals." And in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his
Humour : " Here comes one that will carry coals , ergo will hold
BJV dog." See Kin§ Henry V., Act iii. sc. 2, note 7.

SC I ROMEO AND JULIET. 27

fore I will push Montague's men from the wall, and
tluust his maids to the wall.

Gre. The quarrel is between our masters, and us
their men.

Sam, "Pis all one ; I will show myself a tyrant :
when t have fought with the men, I will be cruel
with the maids ; * I will cut off their heads.

Gre. The heads of the maids ?

Sam. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maid
enheads ; take it in what sense thou wilt.

Gre. They must take it in sense, that feel it.

Sam. Me they shall feel, while I am able to stand ;
and 'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.

Gre. 'Tis well thou art not fish ; if thou hadst,
thou hadst been poor John.* Draw thy tool ; here
comes two of the house of the Montagues.4

Enter ABRAM and BAJ/THAZAR.

Sam. My naked weapon is out : quarrel, I will
back thee.

Gre. How ! turn thy back, and run ?

Sam. Fear me not.

Gre. No, marry : I fear thee !

Sam. Let us take the law of our sides ; let them
begin.

Gre. I will frown as I pass by, and let them take
it as they list.

1 Such is the reading of the undated quarto ; all the other old
copies have civil instead of cruel. H.

* Poor John is hakt, dried and salted.

4 It should be observed that the partisans of the Montague fam-
ily wore a token in their hats in order to distinguish them front
their enemies the Capulets. Hence throughout this play they ara
known at a distance. Gascoigtie adverts to this in a Masq'je writ'
len for Viscount Montacute, in 1575:

" And for a further proofe, he shewed in hys hat
Thys token, which the Montacutes did beare always, for that
They covet to be knowne from CapeU "

28 ROMKO AND JULIET. ACT L

Sam. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb
at them ; which is a disgrace to them, if they
bear it.6

Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir ?

Sam. I do bite my thumb, sir.

Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir ?

Sam. Is the law of our side, if I say, ay ?

Gre. No.

Sam. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, gir ;
but I bite my thumb, sir.

Gre. Do you quarrel, sir 1

Abr. Quarrel, sir ? no, sir.

Sam. If you do, sir, I am for you : I serve aj
good a man as you.

Abr. No better.

Sam. Well, sir.

Enter BENVOLIO, at a distance.

Gre. Say, better : here comes one of my mas-
ter's kinsmen.8

Sam. Yes, better, sir.

Abr. You lie.

Sam. Draw, if you be men. — Gregory, remem-
ber thy swashing blow.7 [ They jight

' This was a common mode of insult, in order to begin a quar-
rel. Dekker, in his Dead Term, 1608, describing the various
groups that daily frequented St. Paul's, says, " What swearing it
there, what shouldering, what jostling, what jeering, what hyting
of thumbs, to beget quarrels ! " And Lodge, in his Wits Miserie
1596 : "Behold, next I see Contempt marching forih, giving me
the Jiiu with his thumbe in his moiithe." The mode in which this
contemptuous action was performed is thus described by Cotgrave:
" Faire la nique : to mocke by nodding or lifting up of the chinne ;
or, more properly, to threaten or defie, by putting the thumbe nail
into the mouth, and with a jerke (from the upper teeih) make it to
knacke."

8 Gregory is a servant of the Capulets : he must therefore menu
Tybalt, who enters immediately after Benvolio.

1 All the old copies except the undated quarto have washing

SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 29

Ben. Part, fools ! put up your swords ; you
know not what you do. [Beats down their swords,

Enter TYBALT.

Tyb. What ! art thou drawn among these heart-
less hinds ?
Turn thee, Benvolio ; look upon thy death.

Ben. I do but keep the peace : put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.

Tyb. What ! drawn, and talk of peace 1 I hate

the word,

As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.
Have at thee, coward. [They Jight.

Enter several Partisans of both Houses, who join the
Fray; then enter Citizens, with Clubs.

1 Cit. Clubs, bills, and partizans ! 8 strike ! beat
them down!

jwn with the Capulets ! down with the Monta-
gues!

instead of swathing. The latter is undoubtedly the right word.
Ben Jonson, in his Staple of News, has the phrase swashing blow.
Baret, in his Alvearie, 1580, says that " to swash is to make a
noise with swords against targets." See As You Like It, Act i.
sc. 3, note 8. H.

8 The old custom of crying out, Clubs, clubs ! in case of any
tumult occurring in the streets of London, has been made familiar
to most readers by Scott in The Fortunes of Nigel. See As You
I .ike It, Act v. sc. 2. note 3. — Bills and partizans were weapons
•j »ed by watchmen and foresters. See As You Like It, Act i. sc.
'2, note 5. — This transferring of London customs to an Italian
city is thus justified by Knight : " The use by Shakespeare of
nome phrases, in the mouths of foreign characters, was a part of
his art. It is the same thing as rendering Sancho's Spanish prov-
erbs into the corresponding English proverbs, instead of literally
translating them. The cry of clubs by the citizens of Verona
expressed an idea of popular movement, which could not liava
been conveyed half so emphatically in a foreign phrase " u.

30 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT k.

Enter CAPULET, in his Gown ; and Lady CAPULET.

Cap. What noise is this ? — Give me my long

sword, ho ! *
Lady C. A crutch, a crutch ! — Why call you for

a sword ?

Cap. My sword, I say ! — Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.

Enter MONTAGUE and Lady MONTAGUE.

Man. Thou villain Capulet ! — Hold me not ; let

me go.
Lady M. Thou shall not stir one foot to seek a

foe.

Enter the Prince, with Attendants.

Prin. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbor-stained steel, —
Will they not hear ! — what ho ! you men, you

beasts,

That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved prince. —
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets;
And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partizans, in hands as old,
Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate.

* The long sword was used in active warfare ; a lighter, shorter [
and less desperate weapon was worn for ornament.

SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 81

If ever you disturb our streets again,

Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.

For this time, all the rest depart away :

You, Capulet, shall go along with me ;

And, Montague, come you this afternoon,

To know our further pleasure in this case,

To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.10

Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

[Exeunt all but MONTAGUE, Lady MONTAGUE,
and BENVOLIO.

Man. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach ? —
Speak, nephew, were you by when it began.

Ben. Here were the servants of your adversary,
And yours, close lighting ere I did approach :
I drew to part them ; in the instant came
The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar'd ;
Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears,
He swung about his head, and cut the winds,
Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn.
While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,
Came more and more, and fought on part and part,
Till the prince came, who parted either part.

10 In Brooke's poem Fret-town is the name of a castle belong-
ing' to Capulet. — Upon the foregoing' part of this scene Coleridge
has the following : " With his accustomed judgment, Shakespeare
has begun by placing before us a lively picture of all the impulses
of llie play ; and, as nature ever presents two sides, one for Her-
HC itus, and one for Democritus, he has, by way of prelude, shown
the. laughable absurdity of the evil by the contagion of it reaching
ihe servants, who have so little to do with it, but who are under
Slie necessity of letting the superfluity of sensoreal power fly ofT
through the escape-valve of wit-combats, and of quarrelling with
weapons of sharper edge, all in humble imitation of their masters.
Yet there is a sort of unhired fidelity, an mirishness about all this,
that makes it rest pleasant on one's feelings. All the first scene,
down to the conclusion of the Prince's speech, is a motley dance
of all ranks and ages to one tune, as if the horn of Huon had
been playing behind the scenes." B.

32 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT L

Lady M. O! where is Romeo 1 — saw you him

to-day 1
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.

Ben. Madam, an hour hefore the worshipp'd sun
Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad ;
Where, underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from the city's side,
So early walking did I see your son.
Towards him I made ; but he was 'ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood :
L, measuring his affections by my own, —
Which then most sought, where most might not be

found,

Being one too many by my weary self,11 —
Pursued my humour, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.

Man. Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sigha
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the farthest east begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in*his chamber pens himself;
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out,
And makes himself an artificial night.
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

Sen. My noble uncle, do you know the cause 1

11 The meaning evidently is, that his disposition was, to be in
nolitude, as he could hardly endure even so much company as thai
of himself. Instead of this and the preceding line, the quarto of
1597 merely has one line, thus : " That most are busied when
they're most alone ;" which reading has been strangely preferred
by some modern editors. 11.

SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 33

Man. 1 neither know it, nor can learn of him.

hen. Have you importun'd him by any means ?

Man. Both by myself, and many other friends'
But he, his own affections' counsellor,
Is to himself — I will not say, how true —
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.12
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,
We would as willingly give cure, as know.

Enter ROMEO, at a distance.

Ben. See, where he comes : So please you, step

aside ;
I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.

Mon. I would, thou wert so happy by thy stay,
To hear true shrift. — Corne, madam, let's away.

[Exeunt MONTAGUE and Lady.
Ben. Good morrow, cousin.
Rom. Is the day so young?

Ben. But new struck nine.

Rom. . Ah me ! sad hours seem long.

Was that my father that went hence so fast 1

Ben. It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's

hours ?
Rom. Not having that, which, having, makes thr.ua

short.
Ben. In love?

11 The old copies have same instead of tun, or sunne, as it was
formerly written. The happy emendation was made by Theo-
bald, and is sustained by a passage in Daniel's Sonnets, 1594 :

" And whilst thou spread'st unto the rising su:\nt
The fairest Jlower that ever saw the light." H.

34 ROMEO AND JULIET. A^T t

Rum. Out.

Ben. Of love ?

Rom. Out of her favour, where I am in love.

Ben. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof !

Rom. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will ! I3
Where shall we dine ? — O me ! what fray was

here?

Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here's much to do with hate, but more with love : —
Why then, O brawling love ! O loving hate !
O any thing, of nothing first create !
O hoavy lightness ! serious vanity !
Misshapen chaos of well seeming forms !
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! —
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh 1 14

Ben. No, coz, I rather weep.

Rom. Good heart, at what 1

Ben. At thy good heart's oppression.

Ram. Why, such is love's transgression. —
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast ;
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it press'd

13 That is, should blindly and recklessly think he can surmount
all obstacles to his will.

14 This string of antithetical conceits seems absurd enough to
us ; but such was the most approved way of describing love in
Shakespeare's time, and for some ages before. Petrarch and
Chaucer used it, and divers old English poets and ballad-makers
abound in it. Perhaps the best del'ence of the use here made of
it is, that such an affected way of speaking not unaptly shows the
itate of Romeo's mind, that his love is rather self-generated than
inspired by any object. At all events, as compared with his style
of speech after meeting with Juliet, it serves to mark the difler-
<uice between being love-sick and being in love. u.

SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 35

With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs ;
Being purg'd,15 a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears :
What is it else ? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz. [Going.

Ben. Soft ! I will go along :

An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.

Rom. Tut ! I have lost myself ; I am not here :
This is not Romeo, he's some other where.

Ben. Tell me in sadness, who is that you love.

Horn. What ! shall I groan, and tell thee ?

Ben. Groan ! why, no ;

But sadly tell me who.

Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will ;
A word ill urg'd to one that is so ill !
In sadness,18 cousin, 1 do love a woman.

Ben. I aim'd so near, when I suppos'd you lov'd.

Rom. A right good marks-man ! — And she's fair
I love.

Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.

16 Such is the reading of the old copies. Divers modem
editions, following Dr. Johnson, change purg'd to urg'd. The
change is a good one, if any change were needed. Of course,
purg'd is purified. Mr. Collier's celebrated second folio substi-
tutes pnjf'd. — As Romeo here resumes his strain of conceits, it
nay be well to quote one or two precedents for it. Thus Wat-
ton, in one of his canzonets :

" Love is a sowre delight, and sugred griefe,
A living death, and ever-dying life."

And Turberville makes Reason harangue against love thus :

« A fierie frost, a flame that frozen is with ise ;
A heavie burden light to beare ; a vertue fraught with vice."

B,
16 In tadnett is gravely, in teriousnea.

Ufl ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I

Rom. Well, in that hit, you miss : she'll not be hit
With Cupid's arrow : she hath Dian's wit ;
And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,
From love's weak childish bow she lives encharm'd.17
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O ! she is rich in beauty ; only poor,
That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.18

Ben. Then she hath sworn that she will still li>«
chaste 1

Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes hug«

waste ;

For beauty, starv'd with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise ; wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair :
She hath forsworn to love ; and in that vow
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.

Ben. Be rul'd by me ; forget to think of her.

Rom. O ! teach me how I should forget to think

Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes :
Examine other beauties.

Rom. "Pis the way

To call hers, exquisite, in question more."
These happy masks*0 that kiss fair ladies' brows,

17 The first quarto and the folio read nncharmed, which gives a
sense just the opposite of that required. Since the time of Rowe,
the uniform reading has been unharm'd, Encharm'd is takes
from Mr. Collier's second folio. For this use of charm see Cym-
beline, Act v. sc. 3, note 5. H.

18 She is poor only, because she leaves no part of her store
behind her, as with her all beauty will die.

19 That is, to call her exquisite beauty more into my mind, and
make it more the subject of conversation. Question was often
used in this sense.

*° This is probably an allusion to the matkt worn by the female

SC. II. ROMEO AND JULIET. 37

Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair:
He that is stricken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
What doth her beauty serve, but as a note
Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair ?
Farewell : thou canst not teach me to forget.21
Ben. I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.

[Exeunt

SCENE II. A Street.

Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and a Servant.

Cap. But Montague is bound as well as I,
In penalty alike ; and 'tis not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.

Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both;
And pity 'tis you liv'd at odds so long.
But now, my lord, what say you to my suit ?

Cap. But saying o'er what 1 have said before :
My child is yet a stranger in the world ;
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years :

spectators of the play ; unless we suppose that these means no
more than the. See Measure for Measure, Act iii. sc. 4, note 11.
81 If we are right, from the internal evidence, in pronouncing
this one of Shakespeare's early dramas, it affords a strong instance
of the fineness of his insight into the nature of the passions, that
Romeo is introduced already love-bewildered. The necessity of
loving creates an object for itself in man and woman ; and yet
there is a difference in this respect between the sexes, though < nly
to be known by a perception of it. It would have displeased us
if Juliet had been represented as already in love, or as fancying
herself go : but no one, I believe, ever experiences any shock at
Romeo's forgetting his Rosa fine, who had been a mere name for
the yearning of his youthful imagination, and rushing into his pas-
sion for Juliet. Rosaline was a mere creation of his fancy ; anci
we should remark the boastful positiveness of Romeo in a love of
his own making, which is never shown where love is really neat
the heart. — CJLERIUOK. u.

38 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT 1

Let two more summers wither in their pride,
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

Pan . Younger than she are happy mothers made.

Cap. And too soon marr'd are those so early

married.1

Earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth:*
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
My will to her consent is but a part ;
An she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love, and you among the store ;
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
At my poor house, look to behold this night
Earth-treading stars, that make dark heaven light :
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel3
When vvell-apparell'd April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight

1 So reads the quarto of 1597 : all the other old copies have
made instead of married. There can he little doubt that married
is right. Puttenhain, in his Art of Poesy, quotes the expression
as proverbial : " The maid that soon married soon marred is."

H.

* Fille de terre is the old French phrase for an heiress. Earth
a put for lands, or landed estate, in other old plays.

* Johnson would read yeomen instead of young men. Others
think young men to he here used for yeomen, as it sometimes is by
old writers. The meaning in that case would be, such comfort as
farmers have at the coming of spring. But there seems to be no
cause for either supposition. What feelings the young are apt to
have in the spring, can hardly need explaining, to those who re
member their youth. However, the Poet's 98th Sonnet yield* a
good comment on the text :

" From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress'd in ail his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youtk in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'a and leap'd with him." H.

SC. D. ROMEO AND JULIET. 39

Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house :4 hear all, all see,
And like her most, whose merit most shall be :
Which, on more view of many, mine being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.*
Come, go with me. — Go, sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona ; find those persons out,
Whose names are written there, [Gives a Paper.] and

to them say,
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.

[Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS.
Serv. Find them out, whose names are written
here ? 8 It is written, that the shoemaker should
meddle with his yard, and the tailor with his last ;
the fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his
nets : but I am sent to find those persons, whose
names are here writ, and can never find what names
the writing person hath he^e writ. I must to the
learned : — In good time

Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO.
Ben. Tut, man ! o"^ fire burns out another's burn-
ing,

4 To inherit, in the language of Shakespeare, is to possess.

* Which is here used for who, referring to her. The usage
was common, as the Bible will show. — By a perverse adherence to
the quarto of 1597, which reads, " Such amongst view of many,"
this passage has been made unintelligible. The quarto of 1599
reads as in the text ; evidently meaning, " Hear all, see all, and
like her most who has the most merit ; her, which, after regarding
attentively the many, my daughter being one, may stand unique
in merit, though she may be reckoned nothing, or held in no esti-
mation." The allusion, as Malone has shown, is to the old pro-
verbial expression, " One is no number.' Thus in Shakespeare's
136th Sonnet :

" Among a number one is reckon'd none ;
Then, in the number let me pass untold."

• '1 he quarto of 1597 adds, "And yet I know not who am writ*
ten here; I must to the learned to Irani of them : that's as mucV
&» to say, the tailor," &c.

10 KOMEO AND JULIET. ACT J

One pnin is lessen'd by another's anguish ;
Turn giddy, and he holp by backward turning ;
One desperate grief cures with another's languish .
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.

Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.7

Ben. For what, I pray thee ?

Rom. For your broken shin.

Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad ?

Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a mad-
man is :

Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipp'd, and tormented, and — Good-den, good
fellow.

Serv. God gi' good den. — I pray, sir, can you
read?

Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

Serv. Perhaps you have learn 'd it without book;
but, I pray, can you read any thing you see ?

Rom. Ay, if I know the letters, and the language.

Serv. Ye say honestly : Rest you merry !

Rom. Stay, fellow ; I can read.

[Reads.] Signior Martino, and his wife and daughters ,
County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters ; The lady
widow of Vitruvio ; Signior Placentio, and his lovely
nieces ; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine ; Mine uncle
Capulct, his wife and daughters ; My fair niece Rosaline ;
Livia ; Signior Valentio, and hia cousin Tybalt ; Lucio,
and thn lively Helena.

A fair assembly ! whither should they come 1

7 The plantain leaf is a blood-stancher, and was formerly ap-
plied to green wounds. See Love's Labour's Lost, Act iii. sc. 1,
note 10. So in Albumazar :

" Help, Armellina, help! I'm fallen i'the cellar:
Bring a fresh plantain-leaf, I've broke my sbin.

6C. II. ROMEO AND JULIET. 41

Sarv. Up

Rom. Whither 1

Scrv. To our house : to supper.

Rom. Whose house 1

Scrv. My master's.

Rom. Indeed, I should have ask'd you that before.

Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking : My mas-
ter is the great rich Capulet ; and if you be not of
the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a
cup of wine.8 Rest you merry. [Exit.

Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's
Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st,
With all the admired beauties of Verona:
Go thither ; and, with unattainted eye,
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires !
And these, — who, often drown'd, could never die, —
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars !
One fairer than my love ! the all-seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.

Ben. Tut ! you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself pois'd with herself in either eye :
But, in that crystal scales,9 let there be weigh'd
Your lady's love 10 against some other maid
That I will show you, shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well, that now shows best.

* This expression often occurs in old plays. We have one stil
in use of similar import : " To crack a bottle."

* So in all the old copies. Rowe changed that to thote. and is
followed in modern editions, except Knight's. Scales is here used
in the singular number ; that's all. U.

10 Heath says, " Your lady's love is the love you bear to youi
lady, whbh, in our language, is commonly used for the lady her
telf." Perhaps we should read, •' Your lady-love."

42 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I

Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. \Excunt

SCENE III. A Room in CAPULET'S House

Enter Lady CAPULET and the Nurse.

Lady C. Nurse, where's my daughter ? call her

forth to me.
Nurse. Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year

old,

1 bade her come. — What, lamb ! what, lady-bird ! —
God forbid ! — where's this girl ? — what, Juliet !

Enter JULIET.

Jul. How now ! who calls ?

Nurse. Your mother.

Jul. Madam, I am here : What is your will 1

Lady C. This is the matter. — Nurse, give leave

awhile ;

We must talk in secret. — Nurse, come back again :
I have remember'd me, thou shall hear our counsel.
Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.

Nurse. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

Lady C. She's not fourteen.

Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,

And yet, to my teen1 be it spoken, I have but four

' Teen is an old word for sorrow, and is here used as a sort of
play upon four and fourteen. — In the old copies the speeches of
the Nurse in this scene are printed as prose. Capell has the great
merit of arranging them into verse.—" The character of the Nurse,"
says Coleridg-e, " is the nearest of any thing in Shakespeare to a
direct borrowing from mere observation ; and the reason is, that
as in infancy and childhood the individual in nature is a represent-
ative of a class, — just as in describing one larch tree you gen-
eralise a grove of them, — so it is nearly as much so in old age
The generalisation is done to the Poet's hand. Here you have

P HI. ROMEO AND JULIET. 43

She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide 1

Lady C. A fortnight, and odd days.

Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she — God rest all Christian souls ! —
Were of an age. — Well, Susan is with God ;
She was too good for me. But, as I said,
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen ;
That shall she, marry : I remember it well.
'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years ;
And she was wean'd, — I never shall forget it, —
Of all the days of the year, upon that day ;
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall :
My ord and you were then at Mantua. —
Nay, I do bear a brain:* — but, as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug !
Shake, quoth the dove-house : 'twas no need, I trow
To bid me trudge.

And since that time it is eleven years ;
For then she could stand alone ; nay, by the rood,
She could have run and waddled all about ;
For, even the day before, she broke her brow :

the garrulity of age strengthened by the feelings of a long-trusted
servant, whose sympathy with the mother's affections gives her
privileges and rank in the household. And observe the mode of
connection by accident of time and place, and the childlike fond-
ness of repetition in a second childhood, and also that happy, hum-
ble ducking under, yet constant resurgence against, the check of
her superiors." H.

* The nurse means to boast of her retentive faculty. To b?ar
a brain was to possess much mental capacity. Thus in Marston'i
Dutch Courtezan : " My silly husband, alas ' auows nothing ofitj
'tin I that must heart a braine for all."

*4 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I.

And then my husband — God be with his soul!

'A was a merry man — took up the child :

" Yea," quoth he, " dost thou fall upon thy face ?

Thou wilt fall backward, when thou hast more wit.

Wilt thou not, .Tule ?" and, by my holy-dam,

The pretty wretch left crying, and said, "Ay."

To see, now, how a jest shall come about !

[ warrant, an I should live a thousand years,

t never should forget it : " Wilt thou not, Jule t *

quoth he ;
And, pretty fool, it stinted,3 and said, "Ay."

Lady C. Enough of this : I pray thee, hold thy
peace.

Nurse. Yes, madam : Yet I cannot choose but

laugh,

To think it should leave crying, and say, "Ay:**
And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow
A bump as big as a young cockrel's stone,
A perilous knock ; and it cried bitterly.
"Yea," quoth my husband, " fall'st upon thy face]
Thou wilt fall backward, when thou com'st to age ;
Wilt thou not, Jule ? " it stinted, and said, " Ay."

Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say 1.

Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to

his grace !

Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs d :
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.

Lady C. Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of. — Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married ?

* To stint is to ttop. Baret translates " Lachrynias suppn-
<nere, to stinte weeping ; " and " to stint e talke," by " sermonei
restinguere." So Ben Jonson in Cynthia's Revels : " Stint thy
bahhling t mgue, fond E«-ho."

!>C. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 45

Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.

Nurse. An honour \ were not I tliine only nursev
1 would say tliou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat

Lady C. Well, think of marriage now ; younger

than you,

Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers: by my count,
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus, then, in brief:
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

Nurse. A man, young lady \ lady, such a man,
A.S all the world — Why, he's a man of wax.4

Lady C. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.

Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.

Lady C. What say you ? can you love the gen-
tleman \

This night you shall behold him at our feast :
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen ;
Examine every married lineament,6
And see how one another lends content;
And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margin of his eyes.*

4 That is, as well made as if he had been modelled in wax. So
in Wily Beguiled : " Why, he is a man as one should picture him
in wax." So Horace uses " Cerea brachia," waxen arms, for
arms wel. shaped.

6 Thus the quarto of 1599. The quarto of 1609 and the folio
read, " every teveral lineament." We have, " The unity and mar-
ried calm of states," in Troilus and Cressida. And in his eighth
Bonnet :

" If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear."

' The comments on ancient books were generally printed in
the margin. Horatio says, in Hamlet, '•' I knew you must e
edified by the margent." So in the Rape ot Lucrece :

" But she that never cop'd with stranger eye*
Could pick no meaning from their parting looks,

46 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT

This precious book of love, this unbound !ovor
To beautify him, only lacks a cover.
The fish lives in the sea ; 7 and 'tis much pride,
For fair without the fair within to hide:
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story ;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.

Nurse. No less ? nay, bigger : women grow bj
men.

Lady C. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris
love?

Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move :
But no more deep will I endart mine eye,8
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

Enter a Servant.

Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper serv'd
up, you call'd, my young lady ask'd for, the nurse
curs'd in the pantry, and every thing in extremity.
I must hence to wait ; I beseech you, follow straight.

Nor read the subtle shining secrecies

Writ in the glassy margent of sach books."

This speech is full of quibbles. The unbound lover is a quibble
on the binding of a book, and the binding in marriage; and the
word cover is a quibble on the law phrase for a married woman,
femme couverte.

7 It is not quite clear what is meant by this. Dr. Farmer ex
plains it, " The fish is not yet caught ; " and thinks there is a ref-
erence to the ancient use of fish-skins for book-covers. It does
not well appear what this meaning can have to do with the con-
text. The sense apparently required is, that the fish is hidden
within the sea, as a thing of beauty within a beautiful thing. Ma-
lone thinks we should read. " The fish lives in the shell , " and ha
adds that " the sea cannot be said to be a beautiful cover to a
fish, though a shell may." — This whole speech and the next are
wanting in the quarto of 1597. H

* The quarto of 1597 reads, " engage mine eye."

<C. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 47

Lady C. We follow thee. — Juliet, the county

stays.

Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Street.

Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with jive or
six Maskers, Torch-Bearers, and Others.

Rom. What ! shall this speech be spoke for our

excuse ?
Or shall we on without apology 1

Ben. The date is out of such prolixity.
We'll have no Cupid hood-wink'd with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper ; *
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entiance :3

1 In King Henry VIII., where the king1 introduces himself at
the entertainment given by Wolsey, he appears, like Romeo and
his companions, in a mask, and sends a messenger before with an
apology for his intrusion. This was a custom observed by those
who came uninvited, with a desire to conceal themselves, for the
sake of intrigue, or to enjoy the greater freedom of conversation.
Their entry on theseoccasions was always prefaced by some speech
in praise of the beauty of the ladies, or the generosity of the en-
tertainer ; and to the prolixity of such introductions it is probable
Romeo is made to allude. In Histriomastix, 1610, a man ex-
presses his wonder that the maskers enter without any compliment :
"What, come they in so blunt, without device?" Of this kiud
of masquerading there is a specimen in Timon, where Cupid pre-
cedes a troop of ladies with a speech.

* The Tartarian bows resemble in their form the old Roman or
Cupid's bow, such as we see on medals and bas-relief. Shake-
speare uses the epithet to distinguish it from the English bow,
whose shape is the segment of a circle. — A crow-keeper was simply
a tcare-crow. See King I/ear, Act iv. sc. 6, note 11.

* This and the preceding lines are found only in the quarto of
1697. Of course there is an allusion to some of the stage prac
tices of the Poet'i time. H.

48 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT L

But, let them measure us by what they will,
We'll measure them a measure, arid be gone.

Rom. Give me a torch : 4 I am not for this am

bling;
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.

Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you
dance.

Rom. Not I, believe me : You have dancing shoes,
With nimble soles ; I have a soul of lead,
So stakes me to the ground, I cannot move.

Mer. You are a lover : borrow Cupid's wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.

Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft,
To soar with his light feathers ; and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe : 6
Under love's heavy burden do I sink.

Mcr. And, to sink in it, should you burden love ;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.

Rom. Is love a tender thing ? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous ; and it pricks like thorn

Mcr. If love be rough with you, be rough with

love ;

Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. —
Give me a case to put my visage in :

[Putting on a Mask.
A visor for a visor ! — what care I,
What curious eye doth quote deformities?'1
Here are the beetle-brows, shall blush for me.

4 A torch-bearer was a constant appendage to every troop of
<t sskers. To hold a torch was anciently no degrading office.
Queen Elizabeth's gentlemen pensioners attended her to Cain-
oridge, and held torche* while a play was acted before her in the
Chapel of King's College on a Sunday evening.

* Milton thought it not beneath the dignity of bis task to use
• similar quibble in Paradise Lost, Book iv. : " At one slight
bound he overleap'd all bound." H.

• Quote was oiten used for obterve or notice. — Brooke's poem

SO. IV. ROMEO ANJ> JULIET. 4i

Ben. Come, knock, and enter ; and no sooner in,
But every man betake him to his leg's.

Rom. A torch for me : let wantons, light of heart.
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels ; 7
For I am proverb 'd with a grandsire phrase, —
I'll be a candle-holder, and look on : 8
The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.

Mer. Tut ! dun's the mouse, the constable's own
word.9

furnished the following hint towards the Mercutio of the play
•therwise the character is wholly original :

" At thone syile of her chayre her lover Romeo,
And on the other syde there sat one cald Mercutio ;
A courtier that eche where was highly had in pryce,
For he was coorteous of his speche, and pleasant of deviae.
Even as a lyon would emoug the lambs be bolde,
Such was emong the bashful! maydes Mercutio to beholde.
With frendly gripe he ceascl fayre Juliets snowish hand :
A gyft he had that Nature gave him in his swathing band,
That frosen mountayu yse was never halfe so cold,
As were his hands, though n«re so neer the fire he did them
holde." H.

' It has been before observed that the apartments of our an-
cestors were strewed with rushes, and so was the ancient stage.

8 To hold the candle is a common proverbial expression for be-
ing an idle spectator. Among Ray's proverbial sentences we have
•' A good candle-holder proves a good gamester." This is the
" grandsire phrase " with which Romeo is proverbed. There is
another old maxim alluded to, which advises to give over when
the game is at the fairest.

9 Dun is the mouse is a proverbial saying of vague signification,
alluding to the colour of the mouse; but frequently employed with
DO other intent than that of quibbling on the word done. Why it
IB attributed to a constable we know not. So in The Two Merry
Milkmaids, 1620 . " Why, then, 'tis done, and dun's the mouse, and
undone all the courtiers." To draw dun out of the mire was a
rural pastime, in which dun meant a dun horse, supposed to be
•tuck in the mire, and sometimes represented by one of the per-
sons who played, at others by a log of wood. Mr. Gifford has
described the game, at which he remembers often to have played,
in a note to Hen Jon.son's Masque of Christmas : " A log of wood
is brought into the miilst of the room ; this is dun (the cart horse)
and a cry is raised that he is stuck in the mire. Twc of the co'->->.

50 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I.

If thou art dun, we'll draw thce from the mire
Of this save-reverence love,10 wherein thou stick'st
Up to the ears. — Come, we burn day -light, ho!11

Rom. Nay, that's not so.

Mer. I mean, sir, in delay

We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.
Take our good meaning ; for our judgment sits
Fue times in that, ere once in our five wits.12

Rom. And we mean well hi going to this mask,
But 'tis no wit to go.

Mer. Why, may one ask ?

Rom. 1 dreamt a dream to-night.

Mer. And so did I

Ram. Well, what was yours ?

Mer. That dreamers often lie.

Rom. In bed, asleep, while they do dream things
true.

Mer. O ! then, I see, queen Mab hath been with

you.
She is the fairies' midwife ;13 and she comes

pany advance, either with or without ropes, to draw him out. After
repeated attempts, they find themselves unable to do it, and call
for more assistance. The game continues till all the company
take part in it, when dun is extricated of course ; and the merri-
ment arises from the awkward and affected efforts of the rustics
to lift the log, and sundry arch contrivances to let the ends of it
fall on one another's toes."

10 The quartos of 1599 and 1609 have, " Or save you reverence
love ; " the folio, " Or save your reverence love." The correc-
tion is derived from the quarto of 1597. H.

11 That is, use a candle when the sun shines ; an old proverbial
phrase for superfluous actions in general. See The Merry Wives
of Windsor, Act ii. sc. 1, note 3. H.

IS! The quartos of 1599 and 1609 read "fine wits." Malone
made the correction. — In the second line before, the folio has
"lights, lights, by day," instead of, " like lamps by day." H.

11 The fai ries' midwife does not mean the midwife to the fairies
but that she was the person among the fairies whose department
it was to deliver the fancies of sleeping men of their dreams, those

SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET, 51

In shape nd bigger than an agate-stone

On the fore-finger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Over men's noses as they lie asleep : I4

Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers ;

The traces, of the smallest spider's web ;

The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams :

Her whip, of cricket's bone ; the lash, of film

Her wagoner, a small gray-coated gnat,

Not half so big as a round little worm

Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid : u

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,

Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,

Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of

love :
On courtiers' knees, that dream on courtesies

straight :

O'er lawyer's fingers, who straight dream on fees :"
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream ;
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweet-meats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit :

children of an idle brain. When we say the Icing's judges, we do
not mean persons who judge the king, but persons appointed by
Lim to judge his subjects. — STEEVENS.

14 So all the old copies except the first quarto, which has
Athwart instead of Over. The metrical arrangement of this
speech is found only in the quarto of 1597 ; the other old copies
printing- it all as prose except the last four lines. H.

15 Maid is from the first quarto ; the other old copies reading
man. The next three lines are not in the first quarto. H.

18 This line also is wanting in the quarto of 1597, which has
r'f lap instead of courtier1* nose in the fourth line below.

H

52 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep ;
Then dreams he of another benefice :
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep ; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab,
That plats the manes of horses in the night ; "
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.
This, this is she —

Rom. Peace, peace ! Mercutio, peace !

Thou talk'st of nothing.

17 This alludes to a singular superstition, not yet forgotten in
some parts of the continent. It was believed that certain malig-
nant spirits assumed occasionally the likenesses of women clothed
in white ; that in this character they sometimes haunted stables in
the night, carrying in their hands tapers of wax, which they
dropped on the horses' manes, thereby plaiting them into inextri-
cable knots, to the great annoyance of the poor animals, and
the vexation of their masters. There is a very uncommon old
print, by Hans Burgmair, relating to this subject. A witch enters
the stable with a lighted torch ; and, previously to the operation
of entangling the horse's mane, practises her enchantments on the
groom, who is lying asleep on his back, and apparently influenced
by the night-mare. The belamites or elf-stones were regarded as
charms against the last-mentioned disease, and against evil spirits
of all kinds. — The next line, "And bakes the elf-locks in foul
sluttish hairs," seems to be unconnected with the preceding, ai d
to mark a superstition which, as Dr. Warburton has observed, may
have originated from the plica Polonica, which was supposed to
be the operation of the wicked elves ; whence the clotted hair was
Called elf-locks, or elf-knots. Thus Edgar talks of " citing all his
hair in knots." — DOUCE. u.

SC. IV ROMEO AND JULIET. 53

Mei. True, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy ;
Which is as thin of substance as the air ;
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.1*

Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from our-
selves :
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

Rom. I fear, too early ; for my mind misgives,
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels ; and expire the term
Of a despised life,19 clos'd in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death :

18 Face, in this line, is from the quarto of 1597 ; the other old
copies having side, which Mr. Collier's second folio changes to
tide. — Coleridge has the following on Mercutio : " O ! how shall
I describe that exquisite ebullience and overflow of youthful life,
wafted on over the laughing waves of pleasure and prosperity, as

wanton beauty that distorts the face on which she knows her
lover is gazing enraptured, and wrinkles her forehead in the tri-
umph of its smoothness ? Wit ever wakeful, fancy busy and pro-
creative as an insect, courage, an easy mind that, without cares
of its own, is at once disposed to laugh away those of olhers, and
yet to be interested in them, — these and all congenial qualities,
melting into the common copula of them all, the man of lank and
the gentleman, with all its excellences and all its weaknesses, con-
stitute the character of Mercutio ! " H.

19 This way of using expire was not uncommon in the Poet's
lime. So in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond :

" Thou must not think thy flow'r can always flourish,
And that thy beauty will be still admir'd ;
But that hose rays which all these flames do nourish,
Cancell' J with time, will have their date expi-'d." H,

54 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT 1,

But He, tliat hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail ! 20 — On, lusty gentlemen.

Ben. Strike, drum." [Exeunt

SCENE V.1 A Hall in CAPULET'S House.

Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.

1 Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to
lake away ? he shift a trencher ! * he scrape a
trencher !

2 Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one
or two men's hands, and they unwash'd too, 'tis a
foul thing.

1 Serv. Away with the joint-stools, remove the
court-cupboard,3 look to the plate. — Good thou,
save me a piece of marchpane ; 4 and, as thou lovest
me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone, and
Nell. — Antony ! and Potpan !

2 Serv. Ay, boy ; ready.

*° So in the first quarto ; the other old copies have tuit instead
of sail. H.

fl Here the folio adds : " They march about the ttage, and
terving men come forth with their napkins."

1 The opening of this scene, down to the entrance of Capulet
is not in the quarto of 1597. H.

8 To shift a trencher was technical. Trenchers were used in
Shf.kespeare's time and long after by persons of good fashion and
qnality.

* The court cupboard was the ancient sideboard : it was a cum
broos piece of furniture, with stages or shelves gradually receding,
like stairs, to the top, whereon the plate was displayed at festivals
They are mentioned in many old comedies.

4 Marchpane was a constant article in the desserts of our ances-
tors. It was a sweet cake, composed of filberts, almonds, pista-
chios, pine kernels, and sugar of roses, with a small portiop of
flour. They were often made in fantastic forms.

SO. V ROMEO AND JULIET. 55

1 Sera. You are look'd for and call'd for, ask'd
for and sought for, in the great chamber.

2 Scrv. We cannot be here and there too. —
Cheerly, boys ! be brisk awhile, and the longer
liver take all. [They retire behind.

Enter CAPULET, Sfc., with the Guests and the
Maskers.

Cap. Welcome, gentlemen ! ladies, that have their

toes

Unplagued with corns, will have a bout with you :* —
Ah ha, my mistresses ! which of you all
Will now deny to dance ? she that makes dainty,

she,

I'll swear, hath corns : Am I come near you now 7
You are welcome, gentlemen ! I have seen the day,
That I have worn a visor, and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,
Such as would please ; — 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis

gone.
You are welcome, gentlemen! — Come, musicians,

play.
A hall ! a hall ! 8 give room, and foot it, girls. —

[Music plays, and they dance.
More lights, ye knaves ! and turn the tables up,7
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot. — •
Ah, sirrah ! this unlook'd-for sport comes well.
Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet ; 8

* So the first quarto ; the other old copies, « will walk about
with you." H.

* An exclamation to make room in a crowd for any particular
purpose, as we now say a ring ! a ring !

7 The ancient tables were flat leaves or boards joined by hinges
and placed on trestles ; when they were to be removed they were
therefore turned uj .

8 Cousin was a '.ommon expression for kinsman.

56 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I

For you and I are past our dancing-days :
How long is't now, since last yourself and I
Were in a mask ?

2 Cap. By'r lady, thirty years.

1 Cap. What, man ! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so

much :

Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,
Come -oenfecost as quickly as it will,
Some five-and-twenty years ; and then we mask'd.

2 Cap. 'Tis more, 'tis more : his son is elder, sir ;
His son is thirty.

1 Cap. Will you tell me that 1

His son was but a ward two years ago.

Rom. What lady's that, which doth enrich the

hand
Of yonder knight ?

Serv. I know not, sir.

Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright !
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear ; 9
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear !
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.10
Did my heart love till now ? forswear it, sight!
[ never saw true beauty till this night.

Tyb. This, by his voice, should be a Montague.—

* So read all the old copies till the second folio, which has,
" Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night." The Poet has B

similar passage in his 27th Sonnet:

" Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new."

H.

18 So all the old copies except the first quarto, which has happy
initead or blessed. •

«?n. y. ROMEO AND JULIET. 57

Fetch me ni) rapier, boy. — What ! dares the slave
Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity 1
Now, by the stock and honour *of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

1 Cap. Why, how now, kinsman ! wherefore storm

you so

Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe ;
A villain, that is hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.

1 Cap. Young Romeo is it 1

Tyb. 'Tis he, that villain Romeo.

1 Cap. Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone,
He bears him like a portly gentleman ;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him,
To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth.
I would not for the wealth of all this town,
Here, in my house, do him disparagement ;
Therefore be patient, take no note of him :
It is my will ; the which if thou respect,
Show a fair presence, and put off these frowns,
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

Tyb. It fits, when such a villain is a guest:
I'll not endure him.

1 Cap. He shall be endur'd :

What, goodman boy ! — I say, he shall ; — go to:
Am I the master here, or you 1 go to.
You'll not endure him ! — God shall mend my soul,—
You'll make a mutiny among my guests !
You will set cock-a-hoop ! you'll be the man !

Tyb. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.

1 Cap. Go to, go to ;

You are a saucy boy. — Is't so, indeed 1 —
This trick may chance to scath you;" — I know
what.

11 That is, do you an injurj

58 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT ».

You must contrary me ! marry, 'tis time, —

Well said, my hearts ! — You are a princox ; li

go: —

Be quiet, or — More light ! more light, for shame ! —
I'll make you quiet : What ! — Cheerly, my hearts !
Tyb. Patience perforce with wilful choler meet

i"g>

Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw ; but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall. [Exit.

Rom. If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,13 —

a Minshew calls a princox " a ripe-headed young boy," and
derives the word from the Latin pretax. The more probable
derivation is from prime cock ; that is, a cock of prime courage or
.spirit ; hence applied to a pert, conceited, forward person. So in
the Return from Parnassus : "Your proud university princox
thinkes he is a man of such merit, the world cannot sufficiently en-
dow him with preferment." And in Phaer's Virgil : " Fyne prin-
cox, fresh of face, furst uttring youth by buds unshorne." — Cole-
ridge remarks upon this dialogue thus : " How admirable is the
old man's impetuosity, at once contrasting, yet harmonized, with
young Tybalt's quarrelsome violence ! But it would be endless
to repeat observations of this sort. Every leaf is different on an
oak tree ; but still we can only say, — our tongues defrauding our
eyes, — This is another oak-leaf! " H.

13 The old copies have sinne instead of Jine ; an easy misprint
when sinne was written with a long * ; corrected by Warburton.
— In the preceding line, the first quarto has unworthy instead of
unworthiest. — The temper of this first interview is very happily
suggested by the corresponding passage in Brooke's poem :

" As soone as had the knight the vyrgins right hand raugbt,
Within his trembling hand her left hath Romeus caught.
Then she with slender hand his tender palm halh prest :
What joy, trow you, was graffed so in Romeus brest ?
At last, with trembling voyce and shamefast chere, the maydt
Unto her Romeus tournde, and thus to him she sayde :
'O, blessed be the time of thy arrival! here.'
' What chaunce (q' he) uuware to me, O lady mine, is hapt,
That geves you worthy cause my cumming here to blisse ? '
Fyrst ruthfully she lookd, then sayd with smyliiig chere, —
• Mervayle no whit my heartes delight my only knight and fere |

SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 59

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too

much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this ;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers,

too?
Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use — in

prayer.
Rom. O then ! dear saint, let lips do what hands

do:

They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers'

sake.

Rom. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I
take. [Kissing her.14

Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purg'd.

Mercutious ysy hande had all to-frozen myne,

And of thy goodness thou agayne hast warmed it with thyne.' "

H.

14 In Shakespeare's time, the kissing of a lady at a social
gathering seems not to have been thought indecorous. So, in
King Henry VIII., we have Lord Sands kissing Anne Boleyn, at
the supper given by Wolsey. — Mr. R. G. White, in his Shake-
speare's Scholar, has the following happy remarks on this bit of
dialogue : " I have never seen a Juliet upon the stage, who ap-
peared to appreciate the archness of the dialogue with Romeo in
this scene. They go through it solemnly, or, at best, with staid
propriety. They reply literally to all Romeo's speeches about
saints and palmers. But it should be noticed that, though this is
the first interview of the lovers, we do not hear them speak until
the close of their dialogue, in which they have arrived at a pretty
thorough understanding of their mutual feelings. Juliet makes a
feint of parrying Romeo's advances; but does it archly, and
knows that he is to have the kiss he sues for. He asks, — ' Have
not saints lips, and holy palmers, too ? ' The stage Juliet an-
swers with literal solemnity. But it was not a conventicle at old
Captilet's : Juliet was not holding forth. How dem ire was hei

60 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I

Jul. Then have my lips the sin that f.hey have
took.

Rom. Sin from my lips ? O, trespass sweetly

urg'd !
Give me my sin again.

Jul. You kiss by th' book.

Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word with
you.

Rom. What is her mother ?

Nurse. Marry, bachelor,

Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.
I nurs'd her daughter, that you talk'd withal :
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks.

Rom. Is she a Capulet t

O, dear account ! my life is my foe's debt.

Ben. Away, begone : the sport is at the best.

Rom. Ay, so I fear ; the more is my unrest.

1 Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone ,
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.18 —
Is it eVn so ? Why, then I thank you all ;
I thank you, honest gentlemen ; 18 good night : —
Moie torches here ! — Come on, then, let's to bed.

real answer: 'Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use — in prayer.'
And when Romeo fairly gets her into the corner, towards which
she has been contriving to be driven ; and says, — 'Thus from
my lips, by thine, my sin is purg'd,' and does put them to that
purgation ; how slyly the pretty puss gives him an opportunity to
repeat the penance, by replying, — 'Then have my lips the sin
that they have took.' " H.

16 Towards is ready, at hand. A banquet, or rere-tvpper, as it
was sometimes called, was similar to our dessert.

" Here the quarto of 1597 adds the following :

" I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been in bed an hour ago i
Light to my chamber, ho ! "

SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 61

Ah, sirrah . by my fay, it waxes late ;

I'll to my rest. [Exeunt all but JULIET and Nurse

Jul. Come hither, nurse : What is yond' gentle-
man 1

Nurse. The son and heir of old Tiberio.

Jul. What's he, that now is going out of door ?

Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio,

Jul. What's he, that follows there, that would not
dance 7

Nurse. I know not.

Jul. Go, ask his name. — If he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

Nurse. His name is Romeo, and a Montague ;
The only son of your great enemy.

Jul. My only love sprung from my only hate !
Too early seen unknown, and known too late !
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.

Nurse. What's this 7 what's this 7

Jul. A rhyme I learn'd even now

Of one I danc'd withal. [One calls urithin, JULIET!

Nurse. Anon, anon : —

Come, let's away ; the strangers all are gone.

[Exeunt.

Enter CHORUS.IT

Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir :
That fair, for which love groan'd for,18 and would
die,

17 This Chorus is not in the quarto of 1597, but is in all tha
other old copies.

18 This doubling of a preposition was common with tne old
writers, and occurs divers times in these plays. See As You Like
It, Act ii. sc. 7, note 10. — Fair, in this line, is used as a substan
live, and iu the sense of beauty. The usage was common. H.

62 ROMEO AND JULIET. 4CT I*

With tender Juliet match'd is now not fair.

Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again,

Alike bewitched by the charm of looks ;

But to his foe suppos'd he must complain,

And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooka t

Being held a foe, he may not have access

To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear ;

And she as much in love, her means much less

To meet her new-beloved any where :

But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,

Tempering extremities with extreme sweet. [Exit.

ACT II.

SCENE I. An open Place, adjoining CAPULET'S
Garden.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. Can I go forward, when my heart is here 1
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.

I He climbs Hie Wall, and leaps down within it.

Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO.

Ben. Romeo ! my cousin Romeo ! Romeo !

Mer. He is wise ;

And, on my life, hath stolen him home to bed.

Ben. He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard1

wall.
Call, good Mercutio.

1 Orchard, from hort-yard, was formerly used for a garden
See Julius Caesar, Act ii. sc. 1, note 1. H.

«C. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 60

Mer. Nay, I'll conjure too. —

Romeo ! humours ! madman ! passion ! lover !
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh;
Speak but one ihyme, and I am satisfied ;
Cry but — Ah me! pronounce2 but — love and dove;
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young auburn Cupid, he that shot so trim,3
When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid. —
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not
The ape4 is dead, and I must conjure him. —
I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,

• This is the reading of the quarto of 1597. Those of 1599
and 1609 and the folio read provant, an evident corruption. The
folio of 1632 has couply, meaning couple, which has been tne read-
ing of many modern editions.

3 The old copies have " Abraham Cupid," which Upton changed
to " Adam Cupid," supposing it to refer to Adam Bell the famous
archer of the old ballad. The change is adopted in all modern
editions excepting Knight's, who retains Abraham, explaining it
to mean "the cheat — the 'Abraham man' — of our old statutes."
Auburn is proposed by Mr. Dyce, who shows that it was a com-
mon epithet of Cupid, and was often misprinted abrahnm and
Abram. Thus, in Soliman and Perseda, we have " abraham-
colour'd Troion " for Trojan with aiibum-co\o\Kr'A hair ; and in
Coriolanus, Act ii. sc. 3, " not that our heads are some brown,
gome blacit, some Abram," where Abram is changed to auburn
in modern editions. — Trim is from the first quarto, the other old
copies having true. That trim is the right word, is shown by the
old ballad of " King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid," which the
Poet nad in his mind. One stanza is as follows :

" The blinded boy, that shoots so trim,

From heaven down did hie ;
He drew a dart, and shot at him

In place where he did lie." H.

4 This phrase in Shakespeare's time wag used us an expression
of tenderness, like poor fool.

64 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT II

And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us.

Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

Mcr. This cannot anger him : 'twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it, and conjur'd it down ;
That were some spite : my invocation
Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress* name,
I conjure only but to raise up him.

Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among thew

trees,

To be consorted with the humorous night : *
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.

Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit,
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone. —
O Romeo ! that she were, O, that she were
An open et ccetera, thou a poprin pear ! —
Romeo, good night: — I'll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.8
Come, shall we go 1

Ben. Go, then ; for 'tis in vain

To seek him here, that means not to be found.

[Exeunt.

• That is, the humid, the moist dewy night. »

• The truckle-bed or trundle-bed was a bed for the servant 01
page, and was so made as to run under the " standing-be^,"
which was for the master. See The Merry Wives of Windsor
Act iv. sc. 5, note 1. — We are not to suppose that Mercutio slept
in the servant's bed : he merely speaks of his truckle-bed in con-
trast with the Jield-bed, that is, the ground. H.

SC. H. ROMEO AND JULIET. 65

SCENE II. CAPULET'S Garden.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. He jests at scars, that never felt a wound. — «
[JULIET appears above, at a Window.
But, soft ! what light through yonder window breaks !
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun ! —
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she :
Be not her maid,1 since she is envious ;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it ; cast it off. —
It is my lady ; O ! it is my love :
O, that she knew she were ! —
She speaks, yet she says nothing : What of that 1
Her eye discourses, I will answer it. —
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks :
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head ?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those starss
As daylight doth a lamp: her eyes in heaven2
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing, and think it were not night
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand !
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek !

Jul. Ah me !

Rom. She speaks : -

1 That is, he not a votary to the moon, to Diana.
* So the first quarto : the other old copies have eye i»gt«a<i of
-fM. H.

66 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT It,

O, speak again, bright angel ! for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
WJ.en he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,8
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Jul. O Romeo, Romeo ! wherefore art thou

Romeo 1

Deny thy father, and refuse thy name :
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

Rom. Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Jul. 'Tis but thy name, that is my enemy ; —
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What's Montague ? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man.4 O, be some other name !
What's in a name 1 that which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet :
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes,
Without that title. — Romeo, doff thy name ;
And for that name, which is no part of thee.
Take all myself.

* So the quarto of 1597 ; the other old copies, " \azy-ptiffing
clouds." Mr. Collier's second folio changes puffing to passing,
which may be right, the long s, as it was then written, being easily
mistaken for f. — "Take notice," says Coleridge, "in this en-
chanting scene of the contrast of Romeo's love with his former
fancy ; and weigh the skill shown in justifying him from his in-
constancy by making us feel the difference of his passion. Yet
this, too, is a love in, although not merely of, the imagination."

H.

4 The words, "nor any other part," are found only in the first
quarto. In the second line below, also, name is from the firs*
quarto ; the other old copies reading, " By any other word."

H.

3U. il. ROMEO AND JULIET. 67

Rom. I take thee at thy word :

Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd ;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Jul. What man art thou, that, thus bescreen'd in

night,
So stumblest on my counsel ?

Rom. By a name

I know not how to tell thee who I am :
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee :
Had I it written, I would tear the word.

Jul. My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue's utterance,5 yet I know the sound.
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague 1

Rom. Neither, fair saint, if either thee displease.

Jul. How cam'st thou hither, tell me ? and where-
fore ?

The orchard walls are high, and hard to climb ;
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

Rom. With love's light wings did I o'erperch

these walls ;

For stony limits cannot hold love out :
And what love can do, that dares love attempt ;
Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.8

Jul. If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

Rom. Alack ! there lies more peril in thine eye,
Than twenty of their swords : look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity

Jul, I would not for the world they saw thee here.

8 So the quarto of 1597 ; the other old copies, " thy tongue's
uttering." In the next speech, also, all the old copies but the firat
quarto have maid and dislike instead of saint and displease.

H.

' That is, no stop, no hindeiance. Thus the quarto of 1597
The later copies read, " no stop to me."

68 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT It

Rom. I have night's cloak to hide me from their

eyes ;

And, but thou love me,7 let them find me here :
My life were better ended by their hate,
Than death prorogued,8 wanting of thy love.

JuL By whose direction found'st thou out this
place ?

Rom. By love, who first did prompt me to inquire :
1- ' lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.
J am no pilot ; yet, wert thou as far
As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,
f would adventure for such merchandise.

JuL Thou know'st the mask of night is on my

face ;

Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek,
For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight.
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke: but farewell compliment!*
Dost thou love me ? I know thou wilt say, ay ;
And I will take thy word ; yet, if thou swear'st,
Thou mayst prove false : at lovers' perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.10 O, gentle Romeo !
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:
Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,

* But is here used in its exceptive sense, without or unltn,

* That is, postponed, delayed or deferred to a more distant pe-
riod. The whole passage has the following construction : " I hav«
night to screen me : — yet unless thou love me, let them find me here.
It were better that they ended my life at once, than to have death
delayed, and to want thy love."

* That is, farewell attention to forms.

10 This Shakespeare found in Ovid's Art of I ove ; perhaps in
Marlowe's translation :

" For Jove himself sits in the azure skies,
And laugh* below at lovers' perjuriet."

SC. II. ROMEO AND JULIET. 00

So thou wilt woo ; but, else, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond ;
And therefore thou may'st think my haviour light :
But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.11
I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou over-heard'st, ere I was ware,
My true love's passion : therefore, pardon me ;
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.

Rom. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops, —

Jul. O ! swear not by the moon, th' inconstant

moon

That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Rom. What shall I swear by?

Jul. Do not swear at all ;

Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I'll believe thee.

Rom. If my heart's dear love —

Jul. Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract to-night :
ft is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden ;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be,
Ere one can say it lightens.12 Sweet, good night !

11 So the first quarto : the later editions have coying instead of
more cunning. Also, in the first line of the next speech, all the
old copies but the first have w<no instead of swear. H.

18 With love, pure love, there is always an anxiety for the safe-
ty of the object, a disinterestedness, by which it is distinguished
from the counterfeits of its name. Compare this scene with Act
Hi. sc. 1, of The Tempest. I do not know a more wonderful in-
stance of Shakespeare's mastery in playing a distinctly remeni-
berable variety on the same remembered air, than in the trans-
port'IIR love-confessions of Romeo ami Juliet, and Ferdinand and

70 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT 1L

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet
Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart, as that within my breast !

Rom. O ! wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied ?

Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night ?

Rom. Th' exchange of thy love's faithful vow for
mine.

Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it ;
And yet I would it were to give again.

Rom. Would'st thou withdraw it 1 for what pur-
pose, love ?

Jul. But to be frank, and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have :
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep ; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

[Nurse calls within.

I hear some noise within : dear love, adieu ! —
Anon, good nurse ! — Sweet Montague, be true.
Stay but a little, I will come again. [Exit.

Rom. O blessed, blessed night ! I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

Re-enter JULIET, above.

JuL Three words, dear Romeo, and good night,

indeed.

If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow

Miranda. There seems more passion in the one, and more dig-
nity in the other ; yet you feel that the sweet girlish lingering and
busy movement of Juliet, and the calmer and more maidenly
fondness of Miranda, might easily pass into each other.— COLB-

HIUC.K. H.

BO. II. ROMEO AND JULIET. 71

By one that I'll procure to come to thee,

Where, and what time, thou wilt perform the rite;

And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay,

And follow thee my lord throughout the world.1*

Nurse. [Within.] Madam.

Jul. I come anon. — But, if thou mean'at not

well,
1 do beseech thee, —

Nurse. [Within.] Madam.

Jul. By and by; I come. —

To cease thy suit,14 and leave me to my grief:
To-morrow will I send.

Rom. So thrive my soul, —

Jill. A thousand times good night ! [Exit.

Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy

light.—
Love goes toward love, as school-boys from their

books ;

But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.

[Retiring slowly.

19 In Brooke's poem Juliet uses nearly the same expressions i

" But if your thought be chaste, and have on vertue ground ;
If wedlocke be the marke, which your desire hath found ;
Obedience set aside, unto my parentes dewe,
The quarrell eke that long agoe betweene our householdes

grewe ;

Both me and myne I will all whole to you betake,
And, following you whereso you got, my fathers house forsake.
But if by wanton love and by unlawful! side
You tbinke to plucke my maydehood's dainty frute,
You are begylde ; and now your Juliet you beseekes
To cease, your sute, and suffer her to live emong her likes."

14 This passage is not in the first quarto, and the other old
copies have strife instead of suit. . Suit agrees much better with
the context, is the word commonly given in modern editions, and
ic found in Mr. Collier's second folio. H.

72 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT H.

Re-enter JULIET, above.

Jul. Hist ! Romeo, hist ! — O, for a falconer's

voice,

To lure this tercel-gentle back again ! "
Bondage ia hoarse, and may not speak aloud ;
Else would I tear the cave where echo lies,
And make her airy voice more hoarse than mine
With repetition of my Romeo's name.

Rom. It is my soul, that calls upon my name :
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears !

Jul. Romeo !

Rom. My dear ! u

Jul. At what o'clock to-morrow

Shall I send to thee ?

Horn. At the hour of nine.

Jul. I will not fail : 'tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.

Rom. Let me stand here till thou remember it.

Jul. I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
Remembering how I love thy company.

Rom. And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.

Jul. 'Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone ;

14 The tercel is the male of the gosshawk, and had the epithet
gentle annexed to it, from the ease with which it was tamed, and
its attachment to man. Tardif, in his book of Falconry, says that
the tieriel has its name from being one of three birds usually found
it the aerie of a falcon, two of which are females, and the third
a male ; hence called tiercelef, or the third. According to the old
books of sport the falcon gentle and tiercel gentle are birds for a
prince. — For voice, third line after, all the old copies but the first
quarto have tongue. H.

18 So the undated quarto. The quarto of 1597 has Madam;
those of 1599 and 1609 and the first folio have niece instead of dear
The second folio changes niece to tweet, which is commonly adopt-
ed in modern editions. B

SO. in. ROMEO AND JULIET. 73

And yet no further than a wanton's bird ;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Lik<! a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it hack again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.

Rom. I would I were thy bird.

Jul. Sweet, so would 1 ;

Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night ! parting is such sweet sor-
row,
That I shall say good night, till it he morrow.

[Exit.

Rom. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy

breast ! —

Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest !
Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell,17
His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell. [Exit.

SCENE III. Friar LAURENCE'S Cell.

Enter Friar LAURENCE, with a Basket.

Fri. The gray-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning

night,1

Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light ;
And flecked * darkness like a drunkard reels

17 So the quarto of 1597 ; the later copies, " my ghostly friars
close cell." — The quartos of 1599 and 1609 and the folio of 1623
assign the first line of this speech to Juliet. H.

1 The reverend character of the Friar, like all Shakespeare's
representations of the great professions, is very delightfu. and
tranquillizing, yet it is no digression, but immediately necessary to
the carrying on of the plot. — COLERIDGE. H.

1 Flecked is dappled, streaked, or variegated. Lord Surrey
uses the word in his translation of the fourth ^Eneid : " Her quiv-
ering cheekes Jlecked with deadly stain." So in the old play of

74 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT II

From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels : a

Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,

The day to cheer, and night's dank dew to dry,

I must fill up this osier cage of ours,

With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers.4

The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb ; *

What is her burying grave, that is her womb ;

And from her womb children of divers kind

We sucking on her natural bosom find :

Many for many virtues excellent,

None but for some, and yet all different.

O ! mickle is the powerful grace that lies

In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities :

For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,

But to the earth some special good doth give ;

Nor aught so good, but, strain'd from that fair use,

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse :

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied ;

And vice sometime's by action dignified.

The Four Prentices : « We'll fleck our white steeds in your Chris-
tian blood."

3 So the first quarto ; the later copies have burning instead of
Jury. Fiery is preferred here, as burning occurs in the next line.

H.

4 So Drayton, in the eighteenth Song of his Poly-Olbion, speak-
ing of a hermit :

" His happy time he spends the works of God to see,
In those so sundry herbs which there in plenty grow,
Whose sundry strange effects he only seeks to know
And in a little maund, being made of oziers small,
Which serveth him to do full many a thing withal.
He very choicely sorts his simples got abroad."

Shakespeare has very artificially prepared us for the part Friar
Laurence is afterwards to sustain. Having thus early discovered
him to be a chemist, we are not surprised when we find him fur-
nishing the draught which produces the catastrophe of the piece.
* Lucretius has the same thought : " Omniparens, eadem rerum
commune sepulcrum.'1 Likewise, Milton, in Paradise Los , Boob
ii. " The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave." H.

8C. IIL ROMEO AND JULIET. 76

Within the infant rind of this weak flowei

Poison hath residence, and medicine power :

For this, being smelt, with that part 6 cheers each

part;

Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still7
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will ;
And, where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. Good morrow, father !

Fri. Benedicite !

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? —
Young son, it argues a distemper'd head,
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed :
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie ;
But where unbruised youth, with unstuff'd brain,
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure,
Thou art uprous'd by some distemperature :
Or, if not so, then here I hit it right, —
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.

Rom. That '.ast is true ; the sweeter rest was mine.

Fri. God pardon sin ! vvert thou with Rosaline 1

Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father ? no ;
1 have forgot that name, and that name's woe.

Fri. That's my good son : But where hast thou
been, then ?

Rom. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy ;

6 That is, with its odour.

7 The first quarto, alone, has foes instead of king*. Also, in
the fourth line above, it has small instead of weak. H.

70 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IL

Where, on a sudden, one liath wounded me,
That's by me wounded : both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies.
I bear no hatred, blessed man ; for, lo !
My intercession likewise steads my foe.

Fri. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift:
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

Horn. Then, plainly know, my heart's dear lore

is set

On the fair daughter of rich Capulet :
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine ;
And all combin'd, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage. When, and where, and how,
We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow,
I'll tell thee as we pass ; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us this day.

Fri. Holy St. Francis ! what a change is here !
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken ? young men's love, then, lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria ! what a deal of brine
Hath vvash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline !
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste !
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears :
Lo ! here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet.
If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline :
And art thou chang'd 1 pronounce this sentence

then, —
Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.

Rom. Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.

Fri. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

"1C. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 77

Rom. And bad'st me bury love.

Fri. Not in a gruve,

To lay one in, another out to have.

Rom. I pray thee, chide not: she whom I love

now

Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow :
The other did not so.

Fri. O ! she knew well,

Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell.
But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
In one respect I'll thy assistant be ;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households' rancour to pure love.

Rom. O ! let us hence ; I stand on sudden haste.

Fri. Wisely, and slow : they stumble, that run
fast. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Street.

Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO.

Mer. Where the devil should this Romeo be?—
Came he not home to-night?

Ben. Not to his father's : I spoke with his man.

Mer. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench,

that Rosaline,
Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.

Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
Hath sent a letter to his father's house.

Mer. A challenge, on my life.

Ben. Romeo will answer it.

Mer. Any man, that can write, may answer a
letter.

Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how
be dares, being dared.

78 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT ll

Mer. Alns, poor Romeo ! he is already dead ;
stabb'd with a white wench's black eye ; shot
thorough the ear with a love-song ; the very pin of
his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft : '
And is he a man to encounter Tybalt ?

Ben. Why, what is Tybalt ?

Mer. More than prince of cat? * I can tell you.
O ! he is the courageous captain of compliments,
He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, dis-
tance, and proportion ; rests me his minim rest,
one, two, and the third in your bosom : the very
butcher of a silk button ; a duellist, a duellist ; a
gentleman of the very first house, — of the first and
second cause.3 Ah, the immortal passado ! the
punto reverse ! the hay ! 4

Brn. The what 1

Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
fantasticoes, these new tuners of accents ! — " By
Jesu, a very good blade ! — a very tall man ! — a
very good whore ! " — Why, is not this a lamentable

1 The allusion is to archery. The clout, or white mark at which
the arrows were directed, was fastened by a black pin, placed in
the centre of it. To hit this was the highest ambition of every
marksman.

2 Tybert, the name given to a cat in the old story book of Rey
nard the Fox. So in Dfkker's Satiromastix : " Tho' you were
Tybert, prince of long-tail'd cats." Again, in Have With You
to Saffron Walden, by Nash : •• Not Tibalt prince of cats." — Tho
words, " I can tell you," are from the first quarto. — Prick-song
music was music pricked or written down, and so sung by nite, no
from memory, or as learnt by the ear. H.

3 That is, a gentleman of the first rank among these duellists ;
and one who understands the whole science of quarrelling, and
will tell you of the first cause, and the second cause for which a
man is to fight. The clown, in As You Like It, talks of the seventh
cause in the same sense.

4 All the terms of the fencing school were originally Italian ;
the rapier, or small thrusting sword, being first used in Italy. The
hay is the word hai, you hare it, used when a thrust reaches the
antagonist. Our fencers on the same occasion cry out ha '

SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 79

thing, grandsire,6 that we should be thus afflicted
with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these
•pardonnez-mois, who stand so niuc.li on the new form,
that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench ? * O,
their bans, their bans!

Enter ROMEO.

lien. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.

Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring. — O,
flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified ! — Now is he for
the numbers that Petrarch flowed in : Laura, to his
lady, was but a kitchen-wench; — marry, she had a
oetter love to be-rhyme her : Dido, a dowdy ; Cleo-
patra, a gipsy ; Helen and Hero, hildings and har-
lots ; Thisbe, a grey eye or so,7 but not to the pur
pose. — Signior Romeo, bonjour! there's a French
salutation to your French slop.8 You gave us the
counterfeit fairly last night.

Rom. Good morrow to you both. What coun-
terfeit did I give you ?

Mer. The slip, sir, the slip:9 Can you not con-
ceive 1

Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio, my business waa
great ; and in such a case as mine a man may
strain courtesy.

* Humorously apostrophising bis ancestors, whose sober timei
were unacquainted with the fopperies here complained of.

' During- the ridiculous fashion which prevailed of great " boul-
gtered breeches," it is said to have been necessary to cut away
hollow places in the benches of the House of Commons, without
which those who stood on the new FORM could not sit at ease on
the old bench.

7 A grey eye appears to have meant what we now call a bhit
eye He means to admit that Thisbe had a tolerably fine eye.

8 The slop was a kind of wide-kneed breeches, or rather trow-
sers. See Much Ado about Nothing, Act iii. sc. 2, note 5

9 In the Poet's time, there was a counterfeit coin called a slip
See Trcilus and Cressida, Act ii. sc. 3, note 4. H.

80 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT II

Mcr. That's as much as to say, such n case aa
yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.

Rom. Meaning, to courtesy.

Mrr. Thou hast most kindly hit it.

Rom. A most courteous exposition.

Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.

Rom. Pink for flower.

Mcr. Right.

Rrnn. Why, then is my pump well flower'd.10

Mer. Well said:11 Follow me this jest now, till
thou hast worn out thy pump ; that, when the single
§ole of it is worn, the jest may remain, after the
wearing, solely singular.

Rom. O single-so I'd jest,1* solely singular for the
singleness.

Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio, for my
wits fail.13

Rom. Switch and spurs, switch and spurs ; or I'll
cry a match.

Mer. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase,14

10 Romeo wore pinked pumps, that is, punched with holes in
figures. It was the custom to wear ribbons in the shoes formed
in the shape of roses or other flowers. Thus in The Masque of
Gray's Inn, 1614: " Every masker's pump wts fastened with a
flower suitable to his cap."

11 So the quarto of 1597 ; the other old copies, Sure wit.

H.

lf Single was often used for simple or silly, Single-souM had
also the same meaning : " He is a good sengyll soule, and can do
no harm ; est doli nescius non simplex." — Herman's Vulgaria.
It sometimes was synonymous with threadbare, coarse-spun, and
this is its meaning here. Cotgrave explains " Monsieur de trois
au boisseau et de trois a un £pee : a threadbare, coarse-spun, sin-
gle-soUd gentleman." See Macbeth, Act i. sc. 3, note 14 ; and
t Henry IV., Act i. sc. 2, note 20.

1J So the first quarto ; other old copies, " my wits faints."

H.

14 One kind of horserace which resembled the flight of wild geete,
wag formerly known by this name. Two horses were started to

8V. TV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 81

I have done ; for thou hast more of the wild-goose
in one of thy wits, than, I am sure, I have in my
whole five. Was I with you there for the goose ?

Rom. Thou wast never with me for any thing,
when thou wast not there for the goose.

Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest

Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not.

Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting ;'* it is a
most sharp sauce.

Rom. And is it not well serv'd in to a sweet goose ?

Mer. O ! here's a wit of cheverel,18 that stretches
from an inch narrow to an ell broad.

Rom. I stretch it out for that word — broad ;
which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide
a broad goose.

Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning
for love ? now art thou sociable, now art thou
Romeo ; now art thou what thou art, by art as well
as by nature : for this drivelling love is like a great
natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his
bauble in a hole.17

Ben. Stop there, stop there.

gether, and whichever rider could get the lead, the other rider was
obliged to follow him wherever he chose to go. This explains th«
pleasantry kept up here. " My wits fail," says Mercutio. Romeo
exclaims briskly, " Switch and spurs, switch and spurs.'' To
which Mercutio rejoins, " Nay, if our wits run the wild goose chast,"
&c.

15 The allusion is to an apple of that name.

18 Soft stretching leather, kid-skin. See King Henry VIII.,
Act ii. sc. 3, note 2.

n Natural was often used, as it still is, for a fool. The bait-
bit was the professional fool's " staff of office." See All's Well
that Ends Well Act iv. sc, 5, note 3 ; and Titus Andronicus, Act
* so. 1, mte 4. H.

Wfi ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT 11

Mer. Thou desirest me stop in my tale against
the hair.18

Ben. Thou would'st else have made thy tale
large.

Mcr. O, thou art deceiv'd ! I would have made
it short ; for I was come to the whole depth of my
tale, and meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no
longer.

Rom. Here's goodly gear '

Enter the Nurse and PETER.

Mer. A sail, a sail !

Ben. Two, two ; a shirt, and a smock.

Nurse. Prter, pr'ythee, give me my fan.1*

Mer. 'Pr'ythee, do, good Peter, to hide her face;
for her fan's the fairer of the two.80

Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen.

Mer. God ye good den,*1 fair gentlewoman.

Nurse. Is it good den ?

Mer. 'Tis no less, I tell you ; for the bawdy hand
of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.2*

18 This phrase, of French extraction, A contre poil, occurs again
in Troilus and Cressida : "Merry against the hair."

19 In The Serving Man's Comfort, 1598, we are informed, " The
rnistresse must have one to carry her cloake and hood, another
her fanne." So in Love's Labour's Lost : " To see him walk be-
fore a lady, and to bear her fan."

30 We here follow the quarto of 1597. In the other old copies
we have the passage thus: "Nurse. Peter. — Peter. Anon. —
Nurse. My fan, Peter. — Mer. Good Peter, to hide her face; for
her fan's the fairer face." Divers modern editions have com-
pounded a third reading out of the two ; which is hardly allow-
able anywhere, and something worse than useless here, even if it
were allowable. H.

11 That is, " God give you a good even." The first of these
contractions is common in our old dramas.

** That is, the point of noon. So in Bright's Charactery, or
A.rte of Short Writing, 1588 : " If the worde end in ed, as I loved.

SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. S3

Nurse. Out upon you ! what a man are you 1

Rwn. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made
for himself to mar.23

Nurse. By my troth, it is well said : — For him-
self to mar, quoth'a ? — Gentlemen, can any of you
tell me where I may find the young Romeo 1

Rom. I can tell you ; but young Romeo will be
older when you have found him, than he was when
you sought him. I am the youngest of that name,
for 'fault of a worse.

Nurse. You say well.

Mer. Yea ! is the worst well ? very well took,
i'faith ; wisely, wisely.

Nurse. If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence
with you.

Ben. She will indite him to some supper.

Mer. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd ! So ho !

Rom. What hast thou found 1

Mer. No hare, sir ; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten
pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent

An old hare hoar, and an old hare hoar,24

Is very good meat in lent:
But a hare that is hoar, is too much for a score,

When it hoars ere it be spent —

Romeo, will you come to your father's 1 we'll to
dinner thither.

Rom. I will follow you.

then make a pricke in the character of the word on the left lide."
See 3 Henry VI., Act i. sc. 4, note 3.

a The preposition for is from the first quarto. The repetition
of it by the Nurse shows that it was not rightly left out of the other
old copies. H.

94 Hoar, or hoary, is often used for mouldy, as things grow white
from moulding. These lines seem to have been part of an old
song. In the quarto of 1597, we have this stage direction : " Ht
\ealk-i by them and tingi."

34 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT JL

Mer. Farewell, ancient lady ; farewell, lady, lady,
lady.1* [Exeunt MERCTJ. and BENVO.

Nurse. Marry, farewell ! — I pray you, sir, what
saucy merchant was this, that was so full of his
ropery 1 *'

Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that lores to hear him-
self talk ; and will speak more in a minute, than he
will stand to in a month.

Nurse. An 'a speak any thing against me, I'll
take him down, an 'a were lustier than he is, and
twenty such Jacks ; and if I cannot, I'll find those.
that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-
gills; I am none of his skains-mates.27 — And tlum
must stand by, too, and suffer every knave to use
me at his pleasure?

Pet. I saw no man use you at his pleasure : if I
had, my weapon should quickly have been out, I
warrant you. I dare draw as soon as another man,
if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on
my side.

Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vex'd, that

** The burthen of an old song. See Twelth Night, Act ii.
sc. 3.

M Ropery appears to have been sometimes used in the sense
of roguery ; perhaps meaning tricks deserving the rope, that is,
the gallows ; as rope-tricks, in The Taming of the Shrew, Act i.
sc. 2, note 10. So in The Three Ladies of London, 1584 : « Thou
art very pleasant, and full of thy roperye." — Merchant was often
used as a term of abuse. See 1 Henry VI., Act ii. sc. 3. note 4
— The words, Marry, farewell, are from the quarto of 1597.

H.

91 By skains-mates the Nurse probably means swaggering
companions. A skain, or skean, was an Irish knife or dagger, a
weapon suitable to the purpose of ruffling fellows. Green, in his
Quip for an Upstart Courtier, describes " an ill-favoured knave,
who wore by his side a slceine, like a brewer's bung knife." Mr
Dyce thinks this explanation " cannot be right, because the Nurse
is evidently speaking of Mercutio's/ema/e companions." We do
not quite see how this should be decisive. H.

SO. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 5(5

every part about me quivers. — Scurvy knave! —
'Pray you, sir, a word ; and, as I told you, my young
lady bade me inquire you out : what she bade me
say, I will keep to myself. But first let me tell ye,
if ye should lead her into a fool's paradise, as they
say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they
say : for the gentlewoman is young ; and therefore,
if you should deal double with her, truly, it were an
ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very
weak dealing.

Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mis-
tress. I protest unto thee, —

Nurse. Good heart ! and, i'faith, I will tell her as
much. Lord, Lord ! she will be a joyful woman.

Rom. What wilt thou tell her, nurse ? thou dost
not mark me.

Nurse. I will tell her, sir, that you do protest;
which, as I take it, is a gentleman-like offer.

Rom. Bid her devise some means to come to shrift
This afternoon ;

And there she shall at friar Laurence' cell
Be shriv'd, and married. Here is for thy pains.

Nurse. No, truly, sir ; not a penny.

Rom. Go to ; I say you shall.

Nurse. This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be
there.

Rom. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey-
wall :

Within this hour my man shall be with thee,
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,*8
Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.

K That is, like stairs of rope in the tackle of a ship. A itotf

6 r a Jiigltt of stairs was once common.

86 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT II

Farewell! — Be trusty, and I'll 'quite thy pains.
Farewell ! — Commend me to thy mistress.

Nurse. Now, God in heaven bless thee ! — Hark
you, sir.

Rom. What say'st thou, my dear nurse ?

Nurse. Is your man secret ? Did you ne'er hear

say,
Two may keep counsel, putting one away 1

Rom. I warrant thee ; my man's as true as steel.

Nurse. Well, sir ; my mistress is the sweetest
lady — Lord, Lord! — when 'twas a little prating
thing, — O ! — There's a nobleman in town, one
Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard ; but she,
good soul, had a« lieve see a toad, a very toad, as
see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her th?it
Paris is the properer man ; but, I'll warrant you,
when I say so she looks as pale as any clout in the
varsal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo be-
gin both with a letter ?

Rom. Ay, nurse ; what of that ? both with an R.

Nurse. Ah, mocker ! that's the dog's name. R
is for the dog.29 No ; I know it begins with some
other letter ; and she hath the prettiest sententious
of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you
good to hear it.

* The old copies read, " R is for the no ;" dog having prob-
ably dropped out of the text. Tyrwhitt suggested the correction.
—Ben Jonsoti, in his English Grammar, says " R is the dog's let-
ter, and hirreth in the sound." And Nashe, in Summer's Last
Will and Testament, 1600, speaking of dogs : " They arre and
barke at night against the moone." And Barclay, in his Ship of
Fooles, pleasantly exemplifies it :

" This man malicious which troubled is with wrath,
Nought els soundeth but the hoorse letter R,
Though all be well, yet he none aunswere hath,
Save the dogges letter glowming with nar, near.'

8C. V ROMEO AND JULIET. 87

Rom. Commend me to thy lady. [Exit.

Nurse. Ay, a thousand times. — Peter !

Pet. Anon.

Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before.30

[Eztunt.

SCENE V. CAPULET'S Garden.

Enter JULIET.

JuL The clock struck nine, when I did send the

nurse ;

fn half an hour she promis'd to return.
Perchance, she cannot meet him : that's not so. —
O, she is lame ! love's heralds should be thoughts,1
Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
Driving back shadows over lowering hills :
Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
Of this day's journey ; and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours, — yet she is not come.
Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She'd be as swift in motion as a ball ;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me :

But old folks, many feign as they were dead ;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.

83 So the first quarto ; the later copies have merely, " Befote
and apace," instead of " Peter, take my fan, and go before."

H.

1 The speech is thus continued in the quarto of 1597 i

" And run more swift than hasty powder fir'd
Doth hurry from the fearful cannon's mouth.
O, now she comes ! Tell me, gentle nurse,
What gays rap %<?ve 7 "

98 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT II.

Enter the Nurse and PETER.

O God, she comes ! — O, honey nurse! what news !
Hast thou met with him ? Send thy man away.

Nurse. Peter, stay at the gate. [Exit PETER,

Jul. Now, good sweet nurse, — O Lord ! why

look'st thou sad ?

Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily ;
If good, thou sham'st the music of sweet news
By playing it to me with so sour a face.

Nurse. I am aweary, give me leave awhile. —
Fie, how my bones ache ! What a jaunt have I had !

Jul. I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy

news :

Nay, come, I pray thee, speak ; — good, good nurse,
speak.

Nurse. Jesu, what haste ! can you not stay

awhile ?
Do you not see, that I am out of breath ?

Jul. How art thou out of breath, when thou haat

breath

To say to me, that thou art out of breath 1
The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Is thy news good, or bad ? answer to that ;
Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance:
Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad ?

Nurse. Well, you have made a simple choice •
you know not how to choose a man : Romeo ! no,
not he ; though his face be better than any man's,
yet his leg excels all men's ; and for a hand, and a
foot, ai.d a body, — though they be not to be talk'd
on, yet they are past compare. He is not the
flower of courtesy, — but I'll warrant him as gentle

SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 89

as a Iamb. — Go thy ways, wench: serve God.—
What ! have you dined at home ?

Jul. No, no : But all this did I know before ;
What says he of our marriage ? what of that ?

Nurse. Lord, how my head aches ! what a head

have I !

It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.
My back ! o' t'other side, — O, my oack, my back —
Beshrew your heart, for sending me about,
To catch my death with jaunting up and down !

Jul. I'faith, I am sorry that thou art not well :
Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my
love?

Nurse. Your love says like an honest gentleman,
And a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome,
And, I warrant, a virtuous. — Where is your mother 1

Jul. Where is my mother? — why, she is within,
Where should she be ? How oddly thou repli'st !
«' Your love says like an honest gentleman, —
Where is your mother ? "

Nurse. O, God's lady dear!

Are you so hot ? Marry, come up, I trow :
Is this the poultice for my aching bones ?
Henceforward do your messages yourself.

Jul. Here's such a coil ! — Come, what says Ro-
meo ?

Nurse. Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day 1

Jul. I have.

Nurse. Then hie you hence to friar Laurence

cell ;

There stays a husband to make you a wife
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks ;
They'll be in scarlet straight at any news
Hie you to church ; I must another way,
To fetch a ladder, by the which your love

90 ROMEO AND JULIET. AJT II

Must climb a bird's nest soon, when it is dark :
I am the drudge, and toil in your delight ;
But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
Go ; I'll to dinner : hie you to the cell.

JuL Hie to high fortune ! — honest nurse, fare-
well. [Eieimt

SCENE VI. Friar LAURENCE'S CelL

Enter Friar LAURENCE and ROMEO.

Fri. So smile the heavens upon this holy act,
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not !

Rom. Amen, amen ! but, come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight :
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare ;
It is enough I may but call her mine.

Fri. These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die ; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite :
Therefore, love moderately ; long love doth so ;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

Enter JULIET.

Here comes the lady : — O ! so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint : '

1 This scene was entirely rewritten after the first quarto, and ir
Ibis place not improved. The passage originally stood thus i

"Youth's love is quick, swifter than swiftest speed.
See where she conies ! —
So light a foot ne'er hurts the trodden flower :
Of love and joy, see, see, the sovereign power ' "

8C. VI. ROMEO 4ND JULIET. 91

A lover may bestride the gossamers
That idle in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall ; so light is vanity.

JuL Good even to my ghostly confessor.

Fri. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us
both.

JuL As much to him, else are his thanks too
much.

Rom. Ah, Juliet ! if the measure of thy joy
Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue
Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.

JuL Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament :
They are but beggars that can count their worth ;
But my true love is grown to such excess,
I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.*

JFW. Come, come with me, and we will make

short work ;

For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone,
Till holy Church incorporate two in one. [Exeunt.

The hyperbole of never wearing out the everlasting flint, appean
less beautiful than the lines as they were originally written, where
the lightness of Juliet's motion is accounted for from the cbeerfu
effects the passion of love produced in her mind. H.

* The old copies read, " I cannot sum up sum of half mj
weaJth," save that in the folio the second sum is printed tome.
Steeveni made the transposition, which is doubtless right. H.

ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III

ACT III.

SCENE I. A public Place.

Enter MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, Page, and Servants.

Beit. I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire :
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
And, if we meet, we shall not 'scape a brawl ;
For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

MT. Thou art like one of those fellows that,
when he enters the confines of a tavern, claps me
his sword upon the table, and says, "God send me
no need of thee ! " and, by the operation of the second
cup, draws him on the drawer, when, indeed, there
is no need.

Ben. Am I like such a fellow ?

Mer. Come, come ; thou art as hot a Jack in thy
mood as any in Italy ; and as soon mov'd to be
moody, and as» soon moody to be mov'd.

Ben. And what to ?

Mer. Nay, an there were two such, we should
have none shortly, for one would kill the other.
Thou ! why thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath
a hair more, JT a hair less, in his beard, than thou
hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking
nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast
hazel eyes : What eye, but such an eye, would spy
out such a quarrel 1 Thy head is as full of quar-
rels, as an egg is full of meat ; and yet thy head
hath been beaten as addle as an egg, for quarrelling
Thou hast quarrell'd with a man for coughing in the
Btreet, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath
lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with

SO. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 'J3

a tailor for wearing his new doublet beft re Easter '?
with another, for tying his new shoes with old rib-
and 1 and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrel-
ling !

Ren. An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art,
any man should buy the fee simple of my life for an
hour and a quarter.

Mer. The fee simple ? O simple !

Ben By my head, here come the Capulets.

Enter TYBALT, and Others.

Mer. By my heel, I care not.

Tyb. Follow me close, for I will speak to them. —
Gentlemen, good den ! a word with one of you.

Mer And but one word with one of us ? Couple
it with something ; make it a word and a blow.

Tyb. You will find me apt enough to that, sir, if
you will give me occasion.

Mer. Could you not take some occasion without
giving?

Tyb. Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo, —

Mer. Consort ! what ! dost thou make us min-
strels ? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear
nothing but discords : here's my fiddlestick ; here's
that shall make you dance. 'Zounds, consort ! '

Ben. We talk here in the public haunt of men :
Either withdraw into some private place,
Or reason coldly of your grievances,
Or else depart ; here all eyes gaze on us.

Mer. Men's eyes were made to look, and let them

gaze :
1 will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.

1 It should be remembered that a contort was the old term for

a get or coin pay y of musicians.

94 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III

Enter ROMEO.

Tyb. Well, peace be with you, sir ! here comes
my man.

Mer. But I'll be hang'd, sir, if he wear youi

livery :

Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower ;
Your worship, in that sense, may call him — man.

Tyb. Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford
No better term than this, — Thou art a villain.

Rom. Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting: — Villain am I none;
Therefore farewell ; I see thou know'st me not.

Tyb. Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me ; therefore, turn and draw.

Rom. I do protest, I never injur'd thee ;
But love thee better than thou canst devise,
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love :
And so, good Capulet, — which name I tender
As dearly as mine own., — be satisfied.

Mer. O calm, dishonourable, vile submission !
A la staccato s carries it away. — [Draws

Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk ?

Tyb. What would'st thou have with me ?

Mer. Good king of cats,3 nothing, but one of
your nine lives ; that I mean to make bold withal,
and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest
of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his
pilcher 4 by the ears 7 make haste, lest mine be about
your ears ere it be out.

* The Italian term for a thrust or stab with a rapier.

' Alluding to his name. See Act ii. sc. 4, note 2.

4 Warburton says that we should read pilclie, which signifies •
coat or covering of skin or leather ; meaning the scabbard. Tiie
tirst quarto has scabbard.

SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 96

Tyb. I am for you. [Dratmng.

Rom. Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

Sfer. Come, sir, your passado. [They fight.

Rom. Draw, Benvolio :

Beat down their weapons. — Gentlemen, for shame
Forbear this outrage ! — Tybalt, — Mercutio, —
The prince expressly hath forbid this bandying
In Verona streets. — Hold, Tybalt! — good Mer-
cutio ! [Exeunt TYBALT and his Partizans.

Mer. I am hurt ; —

A plague o' both the houses ! — I am sped : —
Is he gone, and hath nothing ?

Ben. What ! art thou hurt ?

Mer. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch ; marry, 'tis

enough. —

Where is my page 1 — go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

[Exit Page.

Rom. Courage, man ! the hurt cannot be much.

Mer. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide
as a church-door ; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve : ask
for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave
man.6 I am pepper'd, I warrant, for this world : —
A plague o' both your houses ! — 'Zounds, a dog, a
rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death ! a
braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book
of arithmetic ! — Why the devil came you between
us ? I was hurt under your arm.

5 Ap.er this the quarto of 1597 continues Mereulio's speech as
follows ; " A pox of your houses ! I shall be fairly mounted upon
four men's shoulders, for your house of the Montagues and the
Capulets ; and then some peasantly rogue, some sexton, some base
siave, shall write my epitaph, that Tybalt came and broke the
prince's laws, and Mercutio was slain for the first and second cause.
Where's the surgeon ?

" Boy. He's come, sir.

•• Mer. Now will he keep a mumbling in my guts on the other
side. — Come, Benvolio ; lend me thy hand. A pox of your
houses ' '

96 ROMEO AND JULIET ACT IIT.

Rom. I thought all for the best.

Mcr. Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. — A plague o' hoth your houses !
They have made worms' meat of me :
I have it, and soundly too : — Your houses !

[Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO.

Rom. This gentleman, the prince's near ally,
My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt
In my behalf; my reputation stain'd
With Tybalt's slander, Tybalt, that an hour
Hath been my cousin;9 — O, sweet Juliet!
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate,
And in my temper soften'd valour's steel.

Re-enter BENVOLIO.

Ben. O Romeo, Romeo ! brave Mercutio's dead ;
That gallant spirit hath aspir'd the clouds,
Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.

Rom. This day's black fate on more days doth

depend ; 7
This but begins the woe, others must end.

Re-enter TYBALT.

Ben. Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.

Rom. Alive ! in triumph ! 8 and Mercutio slain !
Away to heaven, respective lenity,
And fire-cy'd fury be my conduct now ! —
Now, Tybalt, take the " villain " back again,
That late thou gav'st me ; for Mercutio's soul

a We have already had cousin in the sense of kinsman. The
first quarto has kinsman here. H.

7 This day's unhappy destiny hangs over the days yet to come.
There will yet be more mischief.

8 So the first quarto ; the later copies, " He gone in triumph."
— The later copies also have " fire and fury " instead of " Rre-ey'd
fury." — Respective is considerative. Cojiduct for conductor.

SC. 1. ROMEO AND JULIET. 97

Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company :
Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.

Tyb. Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort liim

here,
Shalt with him hence.

Rom. This shall determine that.

[Theyfght; TYBALT falls.
Ben. Romeo, away ! be gone !
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain :
Stand not amaz'd : — the prince will doom thee

death,

If thou art taken. — Hence ! — be gone ! — away !
Jtitm. O ! I am fortune's fool.
Ben, Why dost thou stay1!

[Exit ROMEO.

Enter Citizens, fyc.

1 Cit. Which way ran he, that kill'd Mercutio?
Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he]

Ben. There lies that Tybalt.

1 Cit. Up, sir ; go with me

I charge thee in the prince's name, obey.

Enter the Prince, attended; MONTAGUE, CAPULET,
t/ieir Wives, and Others.

Prin. Where are the vile beginners of this fray ?
Ben. O, noble prince ! I can discover all
The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl :
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.

Lady C. Tybalt, my cousin ! — O, my brother's

child!

O prince ! O cousin ! husband ! O, the blood is
spill'd

98 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III.

Of my dear kinsman ! — Prince, as thou art true,
For blood ot ours, shed blood of Montague.
O cousin, cousin !

Prin. Benvolio, who began this bloody fray ?

Ben. Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did

slay;

Romeo, that spoke him fair, bade him bethink
How nice the quarrel was,9 and urg'd withal
Your high displeasure : — all this, uttered
With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd,
Could not take truce with the unruly spleen
Of Tybalt, deaf to peace, but that he tilts
With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast ; '*
Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
Cold death aside, and with the other sends
It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity
Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud,
" Hold, friends ! friends, part ! " and, swifter than

his tongue,

His agile arm beats down their fatal points,11
And 'twixt them rushes ; underneath whose arm,
' An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life
Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled ;
3ut by and by comes back to Romeo,
Who had but newly entertain'd revenge,
And to't they go like lightning ; for, ere I
Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain \
And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly :
This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.

• Nice here means silly, trifling.

0 This small portion of untruth in Benvolio's narrative is finely
conceived. — COLERIDGE. H.

11 So the first quarto ; the other old copies having aged instead
af agile H.

SC. 1. ROMEO AND JULIET. 99

Lady C He is a kinsman to the Montague ;
Affection makes him false, he speaks not true:
Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,
And all those twenty could but kill one life.
I brg for justice, which thou, prince, must give :
Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.

Prin. Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio :
Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe ?

Man. Not Romeo, prince ; he was Mercut'm'i

friend ;

His fault concludes but what the law should end,
The life of Tybalt.

Prin. And, for that offence,

Immediately we do exile him hence :
I have an interest in your hate's proceeding;
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a bleeding:
But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine,
That you shall all repent the loss of mine.
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses ;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses,
Therefore use none : let Romeo hence in haste ;
Else, when he's found, that hour is his last.
Bear hence this body, and attend our will :
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.1*

[Exeunt

19 Dryden mentions a tradition, which might easily reach hi»
time, of a declaration made by Shakespeare, that he was obliged
to till Mercutio in the third Act, lest he should have been Hlltd by
him. Yet be thinks him no stich formidable person, but tliat he
might have lived through the play, and died in his bed, without
danger to the Poet. Dryden well knew, had he been in quest of
truth, that in a pointed sentence, more regard is commonly had lo
the words than the thought, and that it is very seldom to be rigor-
ously understood. Mercutio's wit, gaiety, and courage, will al-
ways procure him friends that wish him a longer life ; hut his death
is not precipitated, he has lived out the time allotted him in th«
construction of the play ; nor do I doubt the ability of Shake-
speare to have continued his existence though some of his salliei

100 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT in

SCENE II. A Room in CAPULET'S House.

Enter JULIET.

Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phrebus' mansion ; ' such a wagoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west,
Ancl bring in cloudy night immediately. —
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night !
That Rumour's eyes may wink,8 and Romeo

are perhaps out of the reach of Dryden ; whose genius was not
very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to humour, hut acute, argu-
mentative, comprehensive, and sublime. — JOHNSON.

1 So the oldest copy ; the later copies having lodging instead
of mansion. Only the first four lines of this speech are in the
quarto of 1597. H.

* Few passages in Shakespeare, perhaps none, have caused
more editorial comment than this. The old copies have runawaijes
instead of Rumour's, or Rumoures, as the word would then have
been printed. Several corrections have been proposed, but Ru-
mour's seems the most satisfactory. Heath was the first to sug-
gest it. Singer, also, without any knowledge, as he assures us,
of Heath's thought, recently hit upon rumourers'. The two are
so nearly alike, that they may well enough pass for a coincideuce
of thought. Finally, Mr. White, of New York, tells us be had
pitched upon Rumour's, before he was aware that any one else
had thought of the word. He discusses the point at much length,
in his Shakespeare's Scholar, and, we think, justifies the change
as fully, perhaps, as the nature of the case can well admit. The
Poet has personified Rumour in the Induction to 2 Henry IV. ;
and in his time she was supposed, like Virgil's Fama, to have
eyes as well as tongues. In support of the change, Mr. White
aptly quotes the following, from an Entertainment given to King
James, March 15th, 1603, by Dekker : " Directly under her, in a
cart by herselfe, Fame stood upright ; a woman in a watchet roabe,
thickly set with open eyes and tongues, a payre of large golden
winges at her back«, a trumpet in her hand, a mantle of sundry
cullours traversing her body : all these ensigns displaying but tho
propertie of her swiftnesse and aptnesse to disperse Rumoure."
Collier's second folio has " enemies' eyes ; " the objection to which
is, that from the nat ire of the case a/1 eyes, as well of friends aj
of enemies, are required to be closed, so that Romeo's visit maj
«e absolutely unknown, save to those already privy to it. Of

SO. II. ROMEO AND JULIET. 101

Leap to these arms, untalk'd-of and unseen! —

Lovers can see to do their amorous rites

By their own beauties ; or, if love be blind,

It best agrees with night. — Come, civil night,*

Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,

And learn me how to lose a winning match,

Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods :

Hood my unmann'd blood bating in my cheeks,4

With thy black mantle ; till strange love, grown bold,

Think true love acted, simple modesty.

Come, night ; come, Romeo ; come, thou day in

night ;

For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.8
Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'a

night,
Give me my Romeo : and, when he shall die,8

course the theory of the reading in the text is, that Rumour, per
sonified, represents the power of human observation ; and that
Juliet longs to have night come, when the eyes of Rumour shall
be shut in sleep, so as to take in nothing for her tongues to work
with ; because, as things now stand, the lovers can meet and know
each other as man and wife, only when the eye of observation is
closed or withdrawn. It may be well to add, as lending some
support to Rumour's, that Brooke's poem has a similar personi-
fication of Report. It is where Juliet is questioning with herself
as to whether Romeo's " bent of love be honourable, his purpose
marriage : "

" So, I defylde, Report shall take her trompe of blacke defame,
Whence she with puffed cheeke shall blowe a blast so shrill
Of my disprayse, that with the noyse Verona shall she fill."

H.

* Civil is grave, solemn.

4 These are terms of falconry. An unmanned hawk is one thai
it not brought to endure company. Bating is fluttering or beat-
ing the wings as striving to fly away.

* The old copies till the second folio have upon instead of on.
Uvon overfills the measure ; and the undated quarto remedies this
by omitting new. H.

* So the undated quarto; the other old copies, " when I shall

UK! " II

102 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III.

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine,

That all the world will be in love with night,

And pay no worship to the garish sun.7 —

O ! I have bought the mansion of a love,

But not possess'd it ; and, though I am sold,

Not yet enjoy'd. So tedious is this day,

As is the night before some festival

To an impatient child, that hath new robes,

And may not wear them. O ! here comes my nurso,

Enter the Nurse, with Cords.

And she brings news ; and every tongue, that speaks
But Romeo's name, speaks heavenly eloquence. —
Now, nurse, what news 7 What hast thou there 1 the

cords,
That Romeo bade thee fetch ?

Nurse. [ Throwing them down.] Ay, ay, the cords.

Jul. Ah me ! what news ? why dost thou wring
thy hands 1

Nurse. Ah well-a-day ! he's dead, he's dead, he s

dead !

We are undone, lady, we are undone ! —
Alack the day ! — he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead !

Jul. Can Heaven be so envious 1

Nurse. Romeo can,

Though Heaven cannot. — O Romeo, Romeo! —
Who ever would have thought it? — Romeo!

Jul. What devil art thou, that dost torment me

thus ?

This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but I*

7 Garish is gaudy, glittering.

* In Shakespeare's time the affirmative particle ay was u«ually
written /, and here it is necessary to retain the old spelling.

SC. II. ROMEO AND JULIET. 103

And that bare vowel /shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice . *
1 am not I, if there be such an I;
Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer, /.
If he be slain, say, I; or, if not, no :
Brief sounds determine of my weal, or woe.

Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine

eyes, —

God save the mark ! — here on his manly breast
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse ;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,
All in gore blood ; — I swoonded at the sight.

Jul. O break, my heart ! — poor bankrupt, break

at once !

To prison, eyes ! ne'er look on liberty !
Vile earth, to earth resign ; end motion here ;
And thou, and Romeo, press one heavy bier !

Nurse. O, Tybalt, Tybalt ! the best friend I had :
O, courteous Tybalt ! honest gentleman !
That ever I should live to see thee dead !

Jul. What storm is this that blows so contrary ?
Is Romeo slaughter'd 1 and is Tybalt dead ?
My dear-lov'd cousin,10 and my dearer lord ? —
Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom I
For who is living, if those two are gone ?

Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished :
Romeo, that kill'd him, he is banished.

Jul. O God ! — did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's
blood ?

Nurse. It did, it did ; alas the day ! it did.

• The cockatrice is the same as the basilisk. We have already
met with the "beast" under the latter name. See 2 Henry VI.,
Act iii. sc. 2, note 2 5 and King Richard III., Act iv. sc. 1, note 5

H.

10 So the first quarto ; the later copies have dearett instead of
dear-lov'd. II

104 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III.

Jul. O, serpent heart, hid with a flowering face
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant ! fiend angelical !
Dove-feather'd raven ! wolvish-ravening lamb !
Despised substance of diviuest show !
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st ;
A damned saint," an honourable villain !— •
O, nature ! what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh 7
Was ever book, containing such vile matter,
So fairly bound ? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace !

Nurse. There's no trust,

No faith, no honesty in men ; all perjur'd,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. —
Ah ! where's my man ? give me some aqua vitee :
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo !

Jul. Blister'd be thy tongue,

For such a wish ! '* he was not born to shame :
Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit ;
For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him !

Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd
your cousin 1

JuL Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband I
Ah, poor my lord ! what tongue shall smooth thy
name,18

11 So the undated quarto : the other old copies have dim instead
of damned. H.

* Note .V e Nurse's mistake of the mind's audible struggles with
Jtsell for its decision in toto. — COLERIDGE. H.

18 To smooth is to speak fair ; it is here metaphorically used
for to mitigate or assuage the asperity of censure with which Ro-
meo's name would be now mentioned.

SO. II. ROMEO AND JULIET. 105

When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it * —
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin 1
That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband :
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring ;
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain ;
And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my hus-
band:

All this is comfort ; wherefore weep I, then ?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
That murder'd me : I would forget it fain ;
But, O ! it presses to my memory,
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds :
" Tybalt is dead, and Romeo — banished!"
That — "banished," that one word — "banished,"
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts.14 Tybalt's death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there :
Or, — if sour woe delights in fellowship,
And needly will be rank'd with other griefs, —
Why follow'd not, when she said, Tybalt's dead,
Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,
Which modern lamentation might have mov'd ? u
But, with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,
"Romeo is banished !" — to speak that word,
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead : — " Romeo is banished ! " —
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death ; no words can that woe

sound. —
Where is my father, and my mother, nurse 1

14 That is, is worse than the loss of ten thousand TybalU.
16 Modern is trite, common. So in As You Like It : " Full of
wise saws and modtrn 'iitances."

106 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III.

Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse :
Will y >u go to them ? I will bring you thither.

Jnl. Wash they his wounds with tears ? mine

shall be spent,

When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.
Take up those cords. — Poor ropes, you are beguil'd,
Both you and I, for Romeo is exil'd :
He made you for a highway to my bed,
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
Come, cords ; come, nurse : I'll to my wedding bed j
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead !

Nurse. Hie to your chamber; I'll find Romeo
To comfort you : — I wot well where he is.
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night :
I'll to him ; he is hid at Laurence' cell.

Jul. O, find him ! give this ring to my true knight,
And bid him come to take his last farewell.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. Friar LAURENCE'S Cell.

Enter Friar LAURENCE and ROMEO.

Fri. Romeo, come forth ; come forth, thou fearful

man :

Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity.

Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince's

doom ?

What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not ?

Fri. Too familiar

Is my dear son with such sour company :
I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.

Rom. What less than dooms-day is the prince's
duom ?

»C. Ill, ROMEO AND JULIET. 1 07

Fri. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips ;
Not body's deathv but body's banishment.

Horn. Ha! banishment? be merciful, say, death;
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death: do not say, banishment.

Fn, Hence from Verona art thou banished :
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

Rom. There is no world without Verona walls.
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
And world's exile is death: — then, banished
Is death misterm'd : calling death banishment,1
Thou cut'st my head off with a golden axe,
And smil'st upon the stroke that murders me.

Fri. O, deadly sin ! O, rude unthankfulness !
Thy fault our law calls death ; but the kind prince,
Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,
And turn'd that black word death to banishment :
This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.

Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy : heaven is here
Where Juliet lives ; and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven, and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. — More validity,*
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies, than Romeo : they may seize

1 So the first quarto ; the later copies, banished instead of ban
ishment. H.

* Validity is often employed to signify worth, value. See King
Lear, Act i. sc. 1, note 13. By courtship, courtesy, courtly beha-
viour is meant. Bullokar defines " compliment to be ceremcny,
court-ship, fine behaviour." So in Ford's Fancies Chaste and
Noble i

" Wnilst the young lord of Telamon, her husband,
Was packeted to France, to study courtship,
Under, forsooth, a colour of employment "

1US ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT 111

On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand,

And steal immortal blessing from her lips;

Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,

Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin ;

But Romeo may not, he is banished.

This may flies do, when I from this must fly :

And say'st thou yet, that exile is not death ? '

Hadot thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,

No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,

But — banished — to kill me? Banished!

O friar ! the damned use that word in hell ;

Howlings attend it : How hast thou the heart,

Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,

A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,

To mangle me with that word, banished ?

Fri. Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a
word.4

Rom. O ! thou wilt speak again of banishment.

7*W. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.

Rom. Yet banished ? — Hang up philosophy !
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,

3 We here follow the arrangement of the first folio, except chat
we transpose the line, " But Romeo may not, he is banished \"
which is there evidently misplaced after the line, " This may flies
do, when 1 from this must fly." The quartos of 1599 and 1609
jumble various readings together thus :

" This may flies do, when I from this must fly:
And say'st thou yet, that exile is not death t
But Romeo may not, be is banished.
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly :
They are free men, but I am banished." H.

4 So the oldest copy : the later copies have Then instead of
Thou, and " hear me a little speak," instead of " hear me but
Bpeak a word." — Fond here means foolish : often so used.

H

SC. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. LU'J

Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,
It helps not, it prevails not : talk no more.

Fri. O ! then I see that madmen have no ears.
Ruin. How should they, when that wise men have

no eyes 1

Fri. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
Rom. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost

not feel :

Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished ;
Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear

thy hair,

And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

Fri. Arise ; one knocks : good Romeo, hide thy
self. [Knocking within

Rom. Not I ; unless the breath of heart-sick

groans,
Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.

[Knocking.
Fri. Hark, how they knock ! — Who's there ? —

Romeo, arise ;
Thou wilt be taken. — Stay awhile. — Stand up;

[Knocking,

Run to my study. — By and by : — God's will !
What wilfulness is this ! — I come, I come.

[Knocking
Who knocks so hard 1 whence come you 1 what's

your will 1
Nurse. [ Within.] Let me come in, and you shall

know my errand :
I come from Lady Juliet.

Fri. Welcome, then.

110 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III.

Enter the Nurse.

Nur*>e. O, holy friar ! O, tell me ! holy friar,
Where is my lady "s lord, where 's Romeo ?

Fri. There on the ground, with his own tear*
made drunk.

Nurse. O, he is even in my mistress' case ;
.1 ust in her case !

Fri. O, woful sympathy !

Piteous predicament!*

Nurse. Even so lies she,

Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering. —
Stand up, stand up ; stand, an you be a man :
For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand ;
Why should you fall into so deep an O 1

Rom. Nurse !

Nurse. Ah sir ! ah sir ! — Death is the end of all.

Rom. Spak'st thou of Juliet ? how is it with her 1
Doth she not think me an old murderer,
Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy
With blood remov'd but little from her own ?
Where is she ? and how doth she ? and what says
My conceal'd lady8 to our cancell'd love 1

Nurse. O ! she says nothing, sir, but weeps and

weeps ;

And now falls on her bed ; and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,
And then falls down again.

Rom. As if that name,

Shot from the deadly level of a gun,

* The old copies make these words a part of the Nurse 3
speech. They were assigned to the Friar, at Farmer's sugges
lion. 11.

* The epithet concealed is to be understood, Dot of the person
but of the condition, of the lady.

5C. IIL ROMEO AND JULIET. Ill

Did murder her ; as that name's cursed hand
Murder'd her kinsman. — O! tell me, friar, tell use,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge ? tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion. [Drawing his Sword,

fYi. Hold thy desperate hand

Art thou a man ? thy form cries out, thou art ;
Thy tears are womanish ; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast :
Unseemly woman, in a seeming man !
Or ill-beseeming beast, in seeming both ! T
Thou hast amaz'd me : by my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady too that lives in thee,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth 1
Since birth and heaven and earth all three do meet
In thee at once ; which thou at once would'st los«.
Fie, fie ! thou sham'st thy shape, thy love, thy wit;
Which, like an usurer, abound'st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man ;
Thy dear love, sworn, but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish ;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,

7 Shakespeare has here followed Brooke's poem i

" Art thou, quoth he, a man ? thy shape saith, to thou art,
Thy crying and thy weping eyes denote a womans hart •
For manly reason is quite from of thy mynd outchased,
And in her stead affections lewd, and fancies highly placed;
So that I stoode in doute this howre at the least,
If thou a man or woman vert, or else a brutish beast."

I 12 KOMEO AND Jl't.IET. 1CT HI

Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skill-less soldier's flask,
Is set a-fire by thine own ignorance,8
And thou dismember'd with thine own defence.9
What ! rouse thee, man ! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead ;
There art thou happy : Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt ; there art thou happy too
The law, that threaten'd death, becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile ; there art thou happy :
A pack of blessings lights upon thy back ;
Happiness courts thee in her best array ;
But, like a misbehav'd and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love :
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her *
But look, thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua ;
Where thou shall live, till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went'st forth in lamentation. —
Go before, nurse : commend me to thy lady ;
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,

* To understand the force of this allusion, it should be remem-
bered that the ancient English soldiers, using match locks, instead
of locks with flints, as at present, were obliged to carry a lighted
match hanging at their belts, very near to the wooden Jla.sk in
which they carried their powder. The same allusion occurs in
Humor's Ordinary, an old collection of English Epigrams I

"When she b\sjlask and touch-boi set 03 fire,
And till this hour the burning is not out."

' And thou torn to pieces with thine own weapons.

5C. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 113

Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto '.
Romeo is coming.

Nurse. O Lord ! I could have stay'd here all the

night,

To hear good counsel : O, what learning is ! —
My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.

Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide

Nurse. Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir,
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. [Exit

Rom. How well my comfort is reviv'd by this !

Fri. Go hence : Good night ; and here stands all

your state :10

Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the break of day disguis'd from hence.
Sojourn in Mantua ; I'll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you, that chances here.
Give me thy hand ; 'tis late : farewell ; good night.

Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief, so brief to part with thee :
Farewell. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Room in CAPULET'S House.

Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and PARIS.

Cap. Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily,
That we have had no time to move our daughter
Look you, she lov'd her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
And so did I : — Well, we were born to die. —
Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night :
I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been a-bed an hour ago.

10 The whole of your fortune depends on this

114 ROMKO AND JCTMET. ACT TU.

Par. These times of woe afford no time to woo.
Madam, good night : commend me to your daughter

Lady C. I will, and know her mind early To-
morrow ;
To-night she's mew'd up to her heaviness.

Cap. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender
Of my child's love :' I think she will be nil'd
In all respects by me ; nay, more, I doubt it not.
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed ;
Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love ;
And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next —
But, soft ! What day is this 1

Par. Monday, my lord.

Cap. Monday? ha! ha! Well, Wednesday is

too soon ;

O' Thursday let it be : — o' Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl. —
Will you be ready ? do you like this haste ?
We'll keep no great ado ; — a friend, or two; —
For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
It may be thought we held him carelessly,
Being our kinsman, if we revel much :
Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,
And there an end. But what say you to Thursday !

Par. My lord, I would that Thursday were to-
morrow.

Cap. Well, get you gone: — O' Thursday be it

then. —

Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed ;
Prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day. —
Farewell, my lord. — Light to my chamber, ho!

Desperate means only bold, adventurous, as if be had said in
the vulgar phrase, I will speak a bold word, and venture io promise
you my daughter. — JOHNSON.

SC. V ROMEO AND JULIET. 115

Afore me . it is so very late, that we

May call it early by and by. — Good night.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. JULIET'S Chamber.1

Enter ROMEO and JULIET

Jul. Wilt thou be gone ? it is not yet near day :
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear ;
Nightly she sings or yond' pomegranate tree.*
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Hotn. It was the lark, the herald of the morn,*

1 The stage direction in the first edition is, " Enter Romeo and
Juliet at a Window." In the second quarto, " Enter Romeo and
Juliet aloft." They appeared, probably, in the balcony which was
erected on the old English stage.

* A writer in the Pictorial Shakespeare gives the following on
this passage : " Amongst the fruit-bearing trees, the pomegranate
is in some respects the most beautiful ; and therefore, in the South
of Europe, and in the East, it has become the chief ornament of
the garden. But where did Shakespeare find that the nightingale
haunted the pomegranate tree, pouring forth her song from the
same bough, week after week ? Doubtless in some old travels
with which he was familiar. Chaucer puts his nightingale hi ' a
fresh green laurel tree ; ' but the preference of the nightingale for
the pomegranate is unquestionable. ' The nightingale sings from
the pomegranate groves in the day-time,' says Russel, in his ac-
count of Aleppo. A friend, whose observations as a traveller are
as acuts as his descriptions are graphic and forcible, informs us
that throughout his journeys in the East he never heard such a
choir of nightingales as in a row of pomegranate trees that skirt
the road from Smyrna to Boudjia." H.

8 This office of the lark is choicely set forth by old Chaucer i
the passage may be seen in A Midsummer-Night's Dreax, Act iii.
ic. 2, note 29. Shakespeare has glorified the subject with special
power, in Venus and Adonis :

" Lo ! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty ;
Who doth the world so gloriously behold,
The cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold." B,

TIG ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III

No nightingale : look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops :
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Jul. Yond' light is not daylight ; I know it, I :
It is gome meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,4
And light thee on thy way to Mantua :
Therefore stay yet ; thou need'st not to be gone.

Rom. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I'll say, yon gray is not the morning's eye,
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's bow ; *
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads :
I have more care to stay, than will to go : —
Come, death, and welcome ! Juliet wills it so. —
How is't, my soul ? let's talk, it is not day.8

4 So in Sidney's Arcadia : " The moon, then full (nut thinking
•corn to be a torch-bearer to such beauty) guided her steps." And
Sir John Davies's Orchestra, speaking of the Sun :

" When the great torch-hearer of heaven was gone
Downe in a maske unto the ocean's court."

* All the old copies have brow instead of bow. The happy
change is made in Mr. Collier's second folio ; and Mr. Singer saya
the same is done in his second folio. H.

' The quarto of 1597 gives this speech in a form which the
PoeJ will hardly be thought to have improved ; thus :

" Let me stay here, let me be ta'en, and die ;
If thou wilt have it so, I am content.
I'll say yon gray is not the morning's eye,
It is the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow ;
I'll say it is the nightingale that beats
The vaulty heaven so far above our heads,
And not the lark, the messenger of morn :
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so,—
What says my love T let's talk, 'tis not yet day."

SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 117

Jul. It is, it is ; hie hence, be gone, away !
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps.
Some say, the lark makes sweet division ; 7
This doth not so, for she divideth us :
Some say, the lark and loathed toad chang'd eye* ; *
O ! now I would they had chang'd voices too,
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.9
O ! now be gone : more light and light it grows.

Rom. More light and light 1 — more dark and dark
our woes.

Enter the Nurse.

Nurse. Madam !

Jul. Nurse.

Nurse. Your lady mother's coming to your chain

her:
The day is broke ; be wary, look about. [Exit.

Jul. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

Rom. Farewell, farewell ! one kiss, and I'll de-
scend. [ROMEO descends.

7 A division, in music, is a variation upon some fundamental
air.

8 The toad having very fine eyes and the lark very ugly ones,
was the occasion of a common saying that the toad and the lark
had changed eyes. The croak of the toad would have been no
indication of the appearance of day, and consequently no signal
for her lover's departure.

y The hunt's up was originally a tune played to wake sports-
men, and call them together. It was a common burthen of hunt-
ing ballads. Pnitenham says that one Gray grew into good esti-
mation with the Duke of Somerset for making certain merry bal-
lads, whereof one chiefly was the hunte is up, the hunte is up.
According to Cotgrave the Reveille, or morning song to a new
married woman, was called the hunt's up. So Drayton, in his
Poly-Olbion : " But hunt's up to the morn the feaiher'd sylvans
sing." And in his third Eclogue : " Time plays the hunt's up to
thy sleepy head."

118 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT 1IL

Jul. Art thou gone so ? love ! lord ! ay, husband,

friend !

I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days :
O ! by this count I shall be much in years,
Ere I again behold my Romeo.

Rom. Farewell ! I will ornit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

Jul. O ! think'st thou we shall ever meet again 1

Rom. I doubt it not ; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.

Jul. O God ! I have an ill-divining soul : 10
Methinks, 1 see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb :
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.

Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you .
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu ! adieu !

[Exit.

Jul. O, fortune, fortune ! all men call thee fickle .
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renown'd for faith 1 Be fickle, fortune ;
For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back.

Lady C. [ Within.] Ho, daughter ! are you up ?

Jul. Who is't that calls ? is it my lady mother ?
Is she not down so late, or up so early ?
What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither ?

10 This miserable prescience of futurity I have always regard
ed as a circumstance peculiarly beautiful. The same kind of
warning from the mind, Romeo seems to have been conscious of
on his goia£ to the entertainment at the house of Capulet :

" My mind misgives me,
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
From this night's revels." STEKVSN&

SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 119

Enter Lady CAPULET.

Lady C. Why, how now, Juliet 1

Jul. Madam, I am not we.

Lady C. Evermore weeping for your cousin's

death ?
What ! wilt thou wash him from his grave with

tears ?

An if thou could'st, thou could'st not make him live ;
Therefore have done. Some grief shows much of

love ;

But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
Jul. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
Lady C. So shall you feel the loss, but not the

friend
Which you weep for.

Jul. Feeling so the loss,

I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

Lady C. Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much

for his death,

As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.
Jul. What villain, madam 1

Lady C. That same villain, Romeo

Jul. Villain and he are many miles asunder.
God pardon him ! I do with all my heart ;
And yet no man, like he, doth grieve my heart.
Lady C. That is, because the traitor murderer

lives.
Jul. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my

hands.

Would none but I might venge my cousin's death !
Lady C. We will have vengeance for it, feai

thou not :

Then, weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua, —
Where that same banish'd runagate doth live, —

120 KOlvlEO AND JULIET. ACT III

Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,11
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company ;
And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.

Jul. Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo, till I behold him — dead —
Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex'd. —
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it ;
That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. — O ! how my heart abhors
To hear him nam'd, — and cannot come to him, —
To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt18
Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him !

Lady C. Find thou the means, and I'll find sucn

a man.
But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

Jul. And joy comes well in such a needful time .
What are they, I beseech your ladyship ?

Lady C. Well, well, thou hast a careful father,

child ;

One who, to put thee from thy heaviness.,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
That thou expect'st not, nor I look'd not for.

Jul. Madam, in happy time,13 what day is that 1

Lady C. Marry, my child, early next Thursday

morn,
The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,

1 So all the old copies but the first quarto, which reads thjs :
' That should bestow on him so sure a draught.'' This reading,
with should chang-ed to shall, has been commonly adopted in the
modern text. H.

14 In this line, Tybalt was first supplied in the folio of 1632
It improves the metre, though nowise necessary to the sense.

H.

1J A la bonne heure. This phrase was interjected when thfl
hearer was not so well pleased as the speaker. — JOHNSON.

SC. V ROMEO AND JULIET. 121

The county Paris,14 at St. Peter's church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

JuL Now, by St. Peter's church, and Peter too.
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste ; that I must wed
Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.
I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,
1 will not marry yet ; and, when I do, I swear
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris. — These are news indeed ! 1§

Lady C. Here comes your father ; tell him BO

yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hands.

Enter CAPULET and the Nurse.

Cap. When the sun sets, the earth doth drizzle

dew;16

But, for the sunset of my brother's son,
It rains downright. —

How now! a conduit,17 girl? what! still in tears?
Evermore showering ? In one little body
Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind ;
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,

14 County, or countie, was the usual term for an earl in Shake-
speare's time. Paris is in this play first styled a young earle.

15 In Mr. Collier's second folio, the words, " These are news
indeed ! " are transferred to Lady Capulet, and made a part of
the next speech. The change, though not necessary to the sense,
seems well worthy of being considered. H.

18 This is scientifically true ; though, poetically, it would seem
better to read air instead of earth. And, in fact, some modern
editions do read air, alleging the undated quarto as authority for
it; but such, it seems, is not the case. A line has been justly
quoted from The Rape of Lucrece as supporting earth : " But ai
the earth doth wetp. the sun being set." H.

17 The same image, which was in frequent use with Shake-
speare's contemporaries, occurs in Brooke's poem : " His sigi>f
are stopt, and slopped in the conduit of his tears "

122 KOMEO AND JULIET. ACT HI

Do ebb and flow with tears ; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood ; the winds, thy sighs ;
Who, — raging with thy tears, and they with them, —
Without a sudden calm, will overset
Th) tempest-tossed body. — How now, wife !
Have you deliver'd to her our decree 1

Lady C. Ay, sir ; but she will none, she givea

you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave !

Cap. Soft ! take me with you, take me with you,

wife.18

How ! will she none 1 doth she not give us thanks T
Is she not proud ? doth she not count her bless'd,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom ?
Jul. Not proud you have, but thankful that you

have :

Proud can I never be of what I hate ;
But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.
Cap. How now ! how now, chop-logic ! " What

is this 1
Proud, — and, I thank you, — and, I thank you

not ; —

And yet not proud : — Mistress minion, you !
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,

18 That is, let me understand you; like the Greek phrase, " Lei
me go along with you." — Coleridge here exclaims, — " A noble
scene! Don't I see it with my own eyes? — Yes! but not with
Juliet's. And observe in Capulet's last speech in this scene his
mistake, as if love's causes were capable of being generalized."

H.

19 Capulet uses this as a nickname. " Choplogyk is he that
whan his mayster rebuketh his servaunt for his defawtes, be will
give him xx wordes for one, or elles he will bydde the devylle*
paternoster :n scvlence." — The xxiiii Ordert of Knaves.

SC. V. ROMEO AND JLLIET. 123

To £0 with Paris to St. Peter's church,

Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.

Out, you green-sickness carrion ! out, you baggage !

You tallow face ! so

Lady C. Fie, fie ! what ! are you mad ?

Jul. Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

Cap. Hang thee, young baggage ! disobedient

wretch !

I tell thee what, — get thee to church o' Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face.
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me ;
My fingers itch. — Wife, we scarce thought us

bless'd,

That God had sent us but this only child ;
But now I see this one is one too much,
Arid that we have a curse in having her.
Out on her, hilding ! 21

Nurse. God in heaven bless her I —

You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

Cap. And why, my lady wisdom 7 hold your

tongue,
Good prudence : smaller with your gossips ; go.

Nurse. I speak no treason.

Cap. O, God ye good den 1

Nurse. May not one speak ?

Cap. Peace, you mumbling fool !

Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,
For here we need it not.

* In the age of Shakespeare, authors not only employed these
terms of abuse in their original performances, but even in their
versions of the most chaste and elegant of the Greek or Roman
poets. Stanyhurst, the translator of Virgil, in 1582, makes Dido
call ./Eneas hedge-brat, cullion, and tar-breech, in the course of
one speech.

21 Hilding was a common term of reproach ; meaning some
thing vil«. 'See The Taming of the Shrew, Act ii. sc. 1, note )

I5i4 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I1L

Lady C. You are too hot.

Cap. God's bread ! it makes me mad.
Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath heen
To have her match'd ; 22 and having now provided
A gentleman of nohle parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly-train'd,"
StiifF'd (as they say) with honourable parts,
Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man, —
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining rnammet,24 in her fortune's tender,
To answer, "I'll not wed, — I cannot love,
I am too young, — I pray you, pardon me." —
But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you :
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me ;
Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near ; lay hand on heart, advise :
An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend ;
An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die i'the streets,
For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.
Trust to't, bethink you ; I'll not be forsworn. [Exit.
Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,

** Such is the reading of all the old copies except the first, by
(he help of which a third reading has been manufactured in divers
modern editions. We subjoin the passage as there given :

" God's blessed mother, wife, it mads me :
Day, night, early, late, at home, abroad,
Alone, in company, waking or sleeping,
Still my care hath been to see her match'd." H.

n Train 'd is from the quarto of 1597 I that of 1599 has Hand ;
the other old copies, allied. — In the second line after, the first
quarto has heart could instead of thought would, which _s the read
ing of all (he other old copies. H.

** Mammet has been explained in 1 Henry IV., Act ii. sc. 3
note 9. The explanation there given hns been disputed, but u
confirmed by the use cf the word in this place. H

SO. V. ROMEO AND JUI.IKT. ISlfi

That sees into the bottom of my grief? —
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away !
Delay this marriage for a month, a week ;
Or, if you do not, make the hndul bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

Lady C. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a

word.

Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee. [Exit.
Jal, O God! — O nurse! how shall this be pre-
vented ?

My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven ;
How shall that faith return again to earth,
Unless that husband send it me from heaven
By leaving earth ? — comfort me, counsel me. —
Alack, alack ! that Heaven should practise strat-
agems

Upon so soft a subject as myself ! —
What say'st thou ? hast thou not a word of joy I
Some comfort, nurse.

Nurse. Faith, here 'tis: Romeo

Is banished ; and all the world to nothing,
That he dares ne'er corne back to challenge you ;
Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the county.
O, he's a lovely gentleman ! 26
Romeo's a dishclout to him : an eagle, madam,

45 The character of the Nurse exhibits a just picture of those
v>hos.> actions have no principles for their foundation. She has
been unfaithful to the trust reposed in her by Capulet, and is
ready to embrace any expedient that offers, to avert the conse-
quences of her first infidelity. The picture is not. however, an
original ; the nurse in the poem exhibits the same readiness to ac
coinmodate herself to the present conjuncture. Sir John Van-
brugh, in The Relapse, has copied, in this respect, the cbaractei
if his nurse from Shakespeare.

126 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT HI,

Hath not so green,26 so quick, so fair an eye,
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first ; or, if it did not,
Your first is dead ; or 'twere as good he were.
As living here, and you no use of him.

JuL Speakest thou from thy heart ?

Nurse. And from my soul too ; or else beshrew
them both.

JuL Amen !

Nurse. What?

JuL Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous

much.

Go in ; and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeas'd my father, to Laurence' cell,
To make confession, and to be absolv'd.

Nurse. Marry, I will ; and this is wisely done.

[Exit.

JuL Ancient damnation ! O, most wicked fiend !
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath prais'd him witli above compare
So many thousand times ? — Go, counsellor ;
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. —
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy ;
If all else fail, myself have power to die. [Exit.

*8 Chaucer, in The Knightes Tale, says of Emetrius, — " Hit
nose was high, his eyen bright citrin ; " which probably means
that his eyes had the colour of an unripe lemon or citron. So,
Fletcher, in The Two Noble Kinsmen: "O! vouchsafe with that
thy rare green eye." And Lord Bacon says that " eyes some,
what large, and the circles of them inclined to greenness, are sigm
rtf long life " H.

ROMEO AND JULIET. 127

ACT IV.

SCENE I. Friar LAURENCE'S CelL

Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS.

Fri. On Thursday, sir 1 the time is very short

Par. My father Capulet will have it so ;
And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste.1

Fri. You say you do not know the lady's mind :
Uneven is the course ; I like it not.

Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death.
And therefore have I little talk'd of love ;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous,
That she doth give her sorrow so much swayj
And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears ;
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society.
Now do you know the reason of this haste.

Fri. [Aside.] I would I knew not why it should

be slow'd.2 —
Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my celL

Enter JULIET.

Par. Happily met, my lady, and my wife !
Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

1 The meaning' of Paris is clear ; he does not wish to restrain
Capulet, or to delay bis own marriage ; there is nothing of slow-
nest in me, to induce me to slacken his haste : but the words given
him seem rather to mean I am not backward in restraining hit
hatte. In the first edition the line ran : " And I am nothing tlack
to slow his baste."

* To *low and to f^rtslovo were anciently in common use.

128 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV.

Par. That may be, must be, love, on Thuisday
next.

Jul. What must be shall be.

Fri. That's a certain text.

Par. Come you to make confession to this father ?

Jul. To answer that, I should confess to. you.

Par. Do not deny to him that you love me.

Jul. I will confess to you that I love him.

Par. So will you, I am sure, that you love me.

Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price
Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.

Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with tears.

Jul. The tears have got small victory by that ;
For it was bad enough before their spite. '

Par. Thou vvrong'st it, more than tears, with
that report.

Jul. That is no slander, sir, that is a truth ;
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.

Jul. It may be so, for it is not mine own. —
Are you at leisure, holy father, now,
Or shall 'I come to you at evening mass?3

Fri. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter.

now. —
My lord, we must intreat the time alone.

Par. God shield, I should disturb devotion ! —
Juliet, on Thursday early will 1 rouse you :
Till then, adieu ! and keep this holy kiss. [Exit.

Jul. O, shut the door ! and when thou hast done

so,

Come weep with me ; past hope, past cure, past
help !

Fri. Ah, Juliet ! I already know thy grief;

* Juliet means vespft ; there is no sucn thing as evening ino««

*C. T. ROMEO \ND JULIET. 12!)

[t strains me past the compass of my wits :

I hear thou must, and nothing must prorogue it»

On Thursday next be married to this county.

JuL Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it :
[f in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I'll help it presently.
God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands ;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,4
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time,
Give me some present counsel ; or, behold,
'Twixi my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak ; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.

Fri. Hold, daughter ! I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry county Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop'st with death himself to 'scape from it;
Aiul, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.

Jul. O ! bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,

4 The seals of deeds formerly were appended on distinct slips
or labels affixed to the deed. Hence in King Richard II. the
Duko of York discovers a covenant, which his son the Duke of
Auiuerle had entered in o, by the depending seal.

ItfO ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV.

From off the battlements of yonder tower;*
Or walk in thievish ways ; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reek} shanks, and yellow chapless skulls ;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud ; '
Things that, to hear them told, have made mo

tremble ;

And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.

Fri. Hold, then : go home, be merry, give con

sent

To marry Paris. Wednesday is to-morrow ;
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber :
Take thou this phial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour ; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease : "

8 So the first quarto ; the other old copies, " any tower.'" — In
the jecond line below, the first quarto reads thus :

"Or chain me to some sleepy mountain's top,
Where roaring bears and savage lions are." H.

* So the undated quarto : the folio of 1623 has grave instead
ol fhroud: the quartos of 1599 and 1609 have nothing after his,
inus leaving the sense incomplete. The first quarto gives the line
Ihus : "Or lay me in a tomb with one new dead." — Instead of
the last line in this speech, the quarto of 1597 has the following :

" To keep myself a faithful unstain'd wife
To my dear lord, IT/ dearest Romeo." H.

7 In the first quarto, where this whole speech extends only U
fourteen lines, we have the following, which is in some respects
better than the reading of the other old copies :

SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 131

No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv'et;

The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade

To paly ashes ; 8 thy eyes' windows fall,

Like death, when he shuts up the day of life ;

Each part, depriv'd of supple government,

Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:

And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death

Thou shall remain full two-and-forty hours,

And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.

Now, when the bridegroom in the morning cornea

To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead

Then, as the manner of our country is,

In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier,9

Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault,

Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.

In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,

Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift ;

And hither shall he come, and he and I

Will watch thy waking, and that very night

Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.

And this shall free thee from this present shame,

If no unconstant toy nor womanish fear

Abate thy valour in the acting it.

Jul. Give me, give me ! O, tell me not of fear !

fyi. Hold ; get you gone ; be strong and pros-
perous

" A dull and heavy slumber, which shall seize
Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep
His natural progress, but surcease to beat.-' H.

• So the undated quarto : the other old copies hare many in-
stead of paly; except the second folio, which has mealy. H.

9 The Italian custom here alluded to, of carrying the dead body
to the grave richly dressed, and with the face uncovered, Sbak*
tpeare found particularly described in Brooke's poem:

" An other use there is, that whosoever dyes,
Borne to their church, with open face upon the be ere he lyes,
In wonted weed attyrde, not wrapt in winding sheete."

132 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV.

In this resolve : I'll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.

Jul. Love, give me strength ! and strength shall

help afford.
Farewell, dear father ! [Exeunt

SCENE II. A Room in CAPULET'S House.

Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, the Nurse, and
Servants.

Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ. —

[Exit Servant.
Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.1

2 Serv. You shall have none ill, sir ; for I'll try
if they can lick their fingers.

1 Cooking was an art of great esteem in Shakespeare's time,
as indeed it is likely to be, so long as men keep up the habit of
eating. Ben Jonson's description of " a master cook," too long
to be quoted here, is a specimen of the humourous sublime not apt
to be forgotten by any one that has feasted upon it. The Poet
has been suspected of an oversight or something1 worse, in making
Capulet give order here for so many " cunning' cooks ;" where-
upon the pictorial edition defends him thus : "Old Capulet, in his
exuberant spirits at his daughter's approaching marriage, calls for
'twenty' of these artists. The critics think this too large a num-
ber. Ritson says, with wonderful simplicity, — ' Either Capulet
had altered his mind strangely, or our author forgot what he had
just made him tell us.' This is indeed to understand the Poet
with admirable exactness. The passage is entirely in keeping
with Shakespeare's habit of hitting off a character almost by a
word. Capulet is evidently a man of ostentation ; but his osten-
tation, as is most generally the case, is covered with a thin veil of
affected indifference. In the first Act he says to his guests,—
' We have a trifling foolish banquet toward.' In the third Act,
when he settles the day of Paris' marriage, he just hints, — 'We'll
keep no great ado ; — a friend, or two.' But Shakespeare knew
that these indications of ' the pride which apes humility' were no!
inconsisteiit with the 'twenty cooks,' — the r«:gret that 'we shall
be much HBfaraisti'd for this time,' and the solicitude expressed in,
Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica.' " H.

S-C. II. ROMEO AND JULIET. 133

Cap. How canst thou try them so ?

1Z Surv. Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot
lick his own fingers : 2 therefore, he that cannot lick
his fingers goes not with me.

Cap. Go, begone. — [Exit Servant.

We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time. —
What ! is my daughter gone to friar Laurence ?

Nurse. Ay, forsooth.

Cap. Well, he may chance to do some good on

her:
A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.

Enter JULIET.

Nurse. See, where she comes from shrift with
merry look.

Cap. How now, my headstrong ! where have you
been gadding ?

JuL Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin
Of disobedient opposition
To you and your behests ; and am enjoin'd
By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,
And beg your pardon. — Pardon, I beseech you !
Henceforward I am ever rul'd by you.

Cap. Send for the county : go tell him of this.
I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.

JuL I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell ;
And gave him what becomed love I might,3
Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.

* This adage is in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, 1589:

" As the olde cocke crowes so doeth the chicke :
A bad cooke that cauuot his owue fingers lick."

* Becomed for becoming. The old writers furnish many such
instances of the active and passive forms used interchangeably.

B.

134 ROMEO AND JULIET. A T IV

Cap. Why, I am glad on't ; this is well, — stand

up:

This is as't should be. — Let me see the county :
Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither. —
Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar,
All our whole city is much bound to him.

Jul. Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,
To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit, to furnish me to-morrow 1

Lady C. No, not till Thursday : there is time
enough.

Cap. Go, nurse, go with her. — We'll to church
to-morrow. [Exeunt JDLIET and Nune.

Lady C. We shall be short in our provision •
'Tis now near night.

Cap. Tush ! I will stir about,

And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.
Go thou to Juliet ; help to deck up her :
I'll not to bed to-night ; — let me alone ;
I'll play the housewife for this once. — What, ho ! — •
They are all forth : well, I will walk myself
To county Paris, to prepare up him
Against to-morrow. My heart is wondrous light.
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. JULIET'S Chamber.

Enter JULIET and the Nurse.

Jul. Ay, those attires are best : — But, gentle

nurse,

i pray thee, leave me to myself to-night ;
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Wluch, well thou know'st, is cross and full of sin-

BC. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 135

Enter Lady CAPULET.

Lady C. What ! are you busy, ho ? need you my
help!

Jul. No, madam ; we have cull'd such necessaries
As are behoveful for our state to-morrow :
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night sit up with you ;
For, I am sure, you have your hands full all,
In this so sudden business.

Lady C. Good night :

Get thee to bed, and rest ; for thou hast need.

[Exeunt Lady CAPULET and Nurse.

Jul. Farewell ! — God knows when we shall meet

again.

I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life :
I'll call them back again to comfort me. —
Nurse ! — What should she do here 1
My dismal scene I needs must act alone. —
Come, phial. —

What if this mixture do not work at all ?
Shall I be married, then, to-morrow morning? —
No, no; — this shall forbid it: — lie thou there. —

[Laying down a Dagger.1
What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly hath minister'd, to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,
Because he married me before to Romeo 1
I fear, it is ; and yet, methinks, it should not,

1 -'Daggers," says Giflbrd, "or, as they are commonly called,
knives, were worn at all times by every woman in England;
whether they were so in Italy, Shakespeare, I believe, never in-
quired, and I cannot tell." H

136 ROMEO AND JULIET ACT FV

For he hath still been tried a holy man :

I will not entertain so bad a thought.2 —

How if, when I am laid into the tomb,

I wake before the time that Romeo

Come to redeem me ? there's a fearful point !

Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,

To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in^

And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes ?

Or, if I live, is it not very like,

The horrible conceit of death and night,

Together with the terror of the place, —

As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,

Where, for these many hundred years, the bones

Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd ; 3

* This line, found only in the quarto of 1597, is retained, as
making the sense more complete. — We subjoin the whole of this
speech as it stands in the first quarto, that the reader may observe
with what growth of power it was afterwards worked out by ihfl
Post:

' Farewell : God knows when we shall meet again.
Ah ! I do take a fearful thing in hand.
What if this potion should not work at all,
Must I of force be married to the county ?
This shall forbid it : knife, lie thou there.
What if the friar should give me this drink
To poison me, for fear 1 should disclose
Our former marriage 1 Ah ! I wrong him much;
He is a holy and religious man :
I will not entertain so bad a thought.
What if I should be stifled in the tomb 7
Awake an hour before the appointed time?
Ah ! then I tear I shall be lunatic ;
And, playing with my dead forefathers' bones,
Dash out my frantic brains. Methinks, I see
My cousin Tybalt weltering in his blood,
Seeking for Romeo ! Stay, Tybalt, stay !
Romeo, I come ; this do I drink to thee." H.

3 This idea was probably suggested to the Poet by his native
place. The charnel at Stratford-upoii-A von is a very arge one,

80. 111. ROMEO AND JULIET. 137

Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud ; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort; —
Alack, alack ! is it not like, that I,
So early waking, — what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad ;4-—
O ! if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers' joints,
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud 1
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains ?
O, look ! methinks, I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier's point. — Stay, Tybalt, stay ! —
Romeo, I come ! this do I drink to thee.4

[She throws herself on the Bed,

and perhaps contains a greater number of bones than are to be
found in any other repository of the same kind in England.

4 "The mandrake," says Thomas Newton in his Herbal, "has
been idly represented as a creature having- life, and engendered
onder the earth of the seed of some dead person that hath beene
convicted and put to death for some felonie or murther, and that
they had the same in such dampish and funerall places where the
saide convicted persons were buried." So in Webster's Duchess
of IMalfy, 1623: " 1 have this night digg'd up a mandrake, and am
grown mad with it." See 2 Henry VI., Act iii. sc. 2, note 14.

6 Such is the closing line of this speech in the quarto of 1597.
The other old copies give it thus : '• Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here's
drink : I drink to thee ; " where a stage-direction " [Here drink.] ''
has evidently got misprinted as a part of the text. The oldest
reading is retained by all modern editors except Knight, Collier,
and Verplanck. — Coleridge remarks upon the passage thus:
"Shakespeare provides for the finest decencies. It would have
been too bold a thing for a girl of fifteen ; — but she swallows tho
draught in a fit of fright." Schlegel has the same thought : " Her
imagination falls into an uproar, — so mauy terrors bewilder the
tende r Uruiu of the maiden, — an*' she drinks off the cup in I

138 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV.

SCENE IV. CAPULET'S Hall

Enter Lady C APPLET and the Nurse.

Lady C. Hold, take these keys, and fetch more

spices, nurse.

Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the
pastry.1 [Exit,

Enter CAPULET.

Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir ! the second cock hath

crow'd,

The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock. —
Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica :
Spare not for cost.

Lady C. Go, go, you cot-quean, go ;

Get you to bed : 'faith, you'll be sick to-morrow
For this night's watching.*

Cap. No, not a whit : What ! I have watch'd ere

now

All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.
Lady C. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt3 in

your time ;
But I will watch you from such watching now.

[Exit Lady CAPDLET

tumult, to drain which with composure would have evinced a too
masculine resolvedness." H

1 The room where the pastry was made.

8 The old copies assign this speech to the Nurse. It was trans
ferred to Lady Capulet at the suggestion of Z. Jackson, who per
tinently asks, — " Can we imagine that a nurse would take so great
a liberty with her master, as to call him a cot-quean, and order him
to bed ? " Besides, the Nurse has just been sent forth by her mis-
tress to •' fetch more spices." — Cot-quean was a term for a man
who busied himself overmuch in women's affairs : so used down
to the time of Addison, as appears from the Spectator, No. 482.

H.

* The animal called the mouse-hunt is the martin, which, being

SC. T. ROMEO AND JULIET. 139

Cap. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood ! — Now

fellow,
What's there ?

Enter Servants, until Spits, Logs, and Baskets.

1 Serv. Things for the cook, sir ; but I know not

what.
Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit 1 Serv ] —

Sirrah, fetch drier logs :
Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

2 Serv. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs,
And never trouble Peter for the matter. [Exit.

Cap. 'Mass, and well said ; a merry whoreson, ha.
Thou shall be logger-head. — Good Father ! 'tis day :
The county will be here with music straight,

[Music within*

For so he said he would. — I hear him near : —
Nurse ! — Wife ! — what, ho ! — what, nurse, I say !

Re-enter the Nurse.

Go, waken Juliet ; go, and trim her up .
I'll go and chat with Paris. — Hie, make haste,
Make haste ! the bridegroom he is come already :
Make haste, I say ! [Exeunt.

SCENE V.

JULIET'S Chamber ; JULIET on the Bed.

Enter the Nurse.

Nurse. Mistress ! — what, mistress ! — Juliet ! —
fast, I warrant her, she : —

of the weasei tribe, prowls about in the night for its prey. " Cat
after kinde, good mouse-hunt,'' is one of Heywood's proverbs

140 ROMEO AND JULIET ACT IV.

Why, Iamb! why, lady! — fie, you slug-a-bed ! —
Why, love, I say ! — madam ! sweet-heart ! — why,

bride !
What ! not a word 1 — you take your pennyworths

now :

Sleep for a week ; for the next night, I warrant,
The county Paris hath set up his rest,1
That you shall rest but little. — God forgive me
(Marry and amen !) how sound is she asleep!
I needs must wake her. — Madam, madam, madam !
Ay, let the county take you in your bed :
He'll fright you up, i'faith. — Will it not be 1
What, drest ! and in your clothes ' and down again
I must needs wake you. Lady ! lady, lady !
Alas ! alas ! — Help ! help ! my lady's dead ! —
O, well-a-day, that ever I was born ! —
Some aqua-vita, ho ! — my lord ! my lady !

Enter Lady CAPULET.

Lady C. What noise is here 7

Nurse. O, lamentable day I

Lady C. What is the matter 1

Nurse. Look, look ! O, heavy day !

Lady C. O me ! O me ! — my child, my only life,
Revive, look up, or I will die with thee ! —
Help, help! — call help.

Enter CAPULET.

Cap. For shame ! bring Juliet forth ; her lord ia
come.

• To *et up one's rest was the same as to make up one's mind
In The Merchant of Venice, Act ii. sc. 2, Launcelot has a similar
quibble : " As I have set up <ny rest to run away, so I will not rest
till I have run some ground." See, also, The Comedy of Errors
Act iv sc. 3, note 2. H.

BC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 141

Nurse. She's dead, deceas'd, she's dead ; alack

the day !
Lady C. Alack the day ! she's dead, she's dead,

she's dead.

Cap. Ha! let me see her. — Out, alas ! she's cold;
Her blood is settled ; arid her joints are stiff;
Life and these lips have long been separated :
Death lies on her, like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.2
Nurse. O, lamentable day !
Lady C. O, woful time !

Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make

me wail, .
Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak.

Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians.

Fri. Come, is the bride ready to go to church ?

Cap. Ready to go, but never to return. —
O son ! the night before thy wedding-day
Hath death lain with thy wife: — there she lies,
Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir ;
My daughter he hath wedded ! I will die,
And leave him all ; life, living, all is death's.*

Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's

face,4
And doth it give me such a sight as this 1

* In the first quarto, this speech stands thus :

" Staj' ! let me see : all pale and wan.
Accursed time ! unfortunate old man ! " H.

8 So in the old copies, but commonly changed in modern «di-
dons to, " life leaving, all is death's." H.

* The quarto of 1597 continues the speech of Paris tbns :

" And doth it now present such prodigies 1
Accurst, unhappy, miserable man,
Forlorn, forsaken, destitute I am ;

142 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT FV

Lady C. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful

day !

Most miserable hour, that e'er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage !
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight.

Nurse. O woe ! O woeful, woeful, woeful day !
Most lamentable day ! most woeful day,
That ever, ever, I did yet behold !
O day ! O day ! O day ! O hateful day !
Never was seen so black a day as this :
O woeful day, O woeful day !

Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain
Most detestable death, by tliee beguil'd,
By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown ! —
O love ! O life ! — not life, but love in death !

Cap. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'di
Uncomfortable time ! why cam'st thou now
To murder, murder our solemnity ? —
O child ! O child ! — my soul, and not my childly-
Dead art thou ! — alack ! my child is dead ;
And with my child my joys are buried !

Fri. Peace, ho, for shame ! confusion's cur

lives not

In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid ; now Heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid :
Your part in her you could not keep from death ;
But Heaven keeps His part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion ;

Born to the world to be a slave in it :

Distrest. remediless, and unfortunate.

Oh heavens ! Oh nature ! wherefore did you make me

To live so vile, so wretched as I shall 7 "

SC V. ROMKO AND JULIET. 143

For 'twas your heaven she should be advanc'd :
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O ! in this love you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well :
She's not well married that lives married long,
But she's best married that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse ; and, as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church ;
For though fond nature bids us all lament,6
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.

Cap. All things, that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral :
Our instruments, to melancholy bells ;
Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast ,
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change \
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.

Pri. Sir, go you in, — and, madam, go mth

him ; —

And go, sir Paris : — every one prepare
To follow this fair corse unto her grave.
The heavens do lower upon you, for some ill ;
Move them no more, by crossing their high will.

[Eieunt CAP., Lady CAP., PARIS, and Friar.

1 Mm. 'Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be
gone.

Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah ! put up, put up ;
For, well you know, this is a pitiful case. [Exit.

1 Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be
amended.

6 AH the old copies except the folio of 1632 have some instead
of fond. — In all, of the preceding line, is from the first quarto ;
the later copies having And in. u

144 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV

Enter PETER."

Pet. Musicians, O, musicians ! " Heart's Ease,
Heart's Ease ; " O ! an you will have me live, play
"Heart's Ease."

1 MILS. Why "Heart's Ease?"

Pet. O, musicians ! because my heart itself playa
" My heart is full of woe." 7 O ! play me some
merry dump, to comfort me.

2 Mus. Not a dump we : 'tis no time to play now.
Pet. You will not, then ?

2 Mus. No.

Pet. I will, then, give it you soundly.
1 Mus. What wiH you give us 1
Pet. No money, on my faith ; but the gleek : 1
will give you the minstrel.8

I Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature.

• Such is the stage-direction of the undated quarto and the fo
!io of 1623. The quartos of 1599 and 1609 have, •< Enter Will
Kemp;" which shows that Kemp was the original performer of
Peter's part. It seems 1101 unlikely that this part of the scene was
written on purpose for Kemp to display his talents in, as there could
hardly he any other reason for such a piece of buffoonery. Cole-
ridge has the following upon it : " As the audience know that Juliet
is not dead, this scene is. perhaps, excusable. But it is a strong
warning to minor dramatists not to introduce at one time many
separate characters agitated by one and the same circumstance.
It is difficult to understand what effect, whether that of pit}' or of
laughter, Shakespeare meant to produce ; — the ozcasion and the
characteristic speeches are so little in harmony ! For example,
what the Nurse says is excellently suited to the Nurse's character,
but grotesquely unsuited to the occasion." H.

7 This is the burthen of the first stanza of A Pleasant New Bal-
lad of Two Lovers : " Hey hoe ! my heart is full of woe." — A
dump was formerly the term for a grave or melancholy strain in
music, vocal or instrumental. It also signified a kind of poetical
elegy. A merry dump is no doubt a purposed absurdity ]>ut into
the mouth of Master Peter.

8 A pun is here intended. A gleekman, or gligman, is a mi*-
ttrel. To girt i. * gleek meant also to pass a jest upon a person,
to make him appear ridiculous ; a gleek being a jest or scoff.

SO. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 14Q

Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dag-
ger on your pave. I will carry no crotchets : I'll
re you, I'll fa you : Do you note me?

1 Mm. An you re us, and fa us, you note us.

2 Mus. 'Pray you, put up your dagger, and put
out your wit.

Pet. Then have at you with my wit : I will dry-
beat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dag-
ger.— Answer me like men:

When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music, with her silver sound,9 —

Why, " silver sound 1 " why, " music, with her silver
sound ? " What say you, Simon Catling ! 10

1 Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet
sound.

Pet. Pretty ! " What say you, Hugh Rebeck ?

2 Mus. I say — "silver sound," because musicians
sound for silver.

Pet. Pretty too ! — What say you, James Sound-
post ?

3 Mus 'Faith, I know not what to say.

Pet. (), I cry you mercy ! you are the singer:

This is part of a song1 by Richard Edwards, to be found in
the Paradice of Dainty Devices. Another copy of this song is to
be found in Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. — The
second line of Peter's quotation is wanting in all the old copies
except the first quarto; and in all the old copies the words, "Then
have at you with iny wit," are made a part of the preceding
speech. H.

10 This worthy takes his name from a small lutestring made of
catgut ; his companion the fiddler, from an instrument of the sumo
name mentioned by many of our old writers, and recorded by Mil-
ton as an instrument of mirth :

" When the merry bells ring round,
And the joyful rebecks sound."

1 So tne first quarto ; the other o.u copies, Prates, or Prateu

H

14H ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V

I will say for you. It is — "music, with her silver
sound," because such fellows as you have seldom
gold for sounding :

Then music, with her silver sound,
With speedy help doth lend redress.

[Exit, singing

1 Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same !

2 Mus. Hang him, Jack ! Come, we'll in here
tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner. [Exeunt

ACT V.

SCENE I. Mantua. A Street.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand :
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne ;
And, all this day, an unaccustom'd spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.*
I dreamt, my lady came and found me dead,
(Strange dream ! that gives a dead man leave to

think,)
And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips,

• Thus the first quarto. The later copies read, " If I may trust
the flattering1 truth of sleep." The sense appears to be, If I may
trust the visions with which my eye flattered me in sleep.

* These three last lines are very gay and pleasing. But why
does Shakespeare give Romeo this involuntary cheerfulness just
before the extremity of unhappiness ? Perhaps to show the vanity
of trusting to those uncertain and casual exaltations or depressions,
which many consider as certain foretokens of good and evil —
JOHNSON.

SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 14?

That I reviv'd, and was an emperor.

Ah me ! how sweet is love itself possess'd,

When but love's shadows are so rich in joy !—

Enter BALTHASAR.

News from Verona ! — How now, Balthasar I
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady ? Is my father well 1
How fares my Juliet 1 3 That I ask again ;
For nothing can be ill, if she be well.

BaL Then she is well, and nothing can be ill :
Her body sleeps in Capels' monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
And presently took post to tell it you :
O ! pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

Rom. Is it e'en so 1 then I defy you, stars ! —
Thou know'st my lodging : get me ink and paper.
And hire post-horses ; I will henc'e to-night.

BaL I do beseech you, sir, have patience : 4
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

Rom. Tush ! thou art deceiv'd ;

Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
I last thou no letters to me from the friar?

BaL No, my good lord.

Rom. No matter ; get thee gone.

And hire those horses : I'll be with thee straight. —

[Exit BALTHASAR.

* So the first quarto ; the later copies, " How doth my lady
Juliet 7 " thus repeating a part of the foregoing- line. H.

4 So all the old editions except the first, which reads, — " Par-
don me, sir, I will not leave you thus." — Defy, in the first line of
(he preceding speech, is from the earliest copy ; the others having
deny. H

148 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V

Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night

Let's soe for means : — O, mischief ! thou art swift

To enter in the thoughts of desperate men !

I do remember an apothecary, —

And hereabouts he dwells, — whom late I noted

In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,

Culling of simples : meagre were his looks ;

Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:

And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,

An alligator stuff'd,6 and other skins

Of ill-shap'd fishes ; and about his shelves

A beggarly account of empty boxes,

Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,

Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of rogett.

Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.

Noting this penury, to myself I said, —

An if a man did need u poison now,

Whose sale is present death in Mantua,

Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.

O ! this same thought did but forerun my need ;

And this same needy man must sell it me.

As I remember, this should be the house :

Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut. —

What, ho ! apothecary !

Enter the Apothecary.

Ap. Who calls so loud 1

Rom. Come hither, man. — I see that thou art

poor;
Hold, there is forty ducats : let me have

• We learn from Nashe's Have with You to Saffron Walden,
15%, that a stuffed alligator then made part of the furniture of an
apothecary's shop : " He made an anatomie of a rat, and after
hanged her over his head, instead of an apothecary's crocodile or
dried alligitor"

HC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 149

A drum of poison ; such soon-speeding gear

As will disperse itself through all the veins,

That the life-weary taker may fall dead ;

And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath

As violently, as hasty powder fir'd

Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

Ap. Such mortal drugs I have ; but Mantua's law
Is death to any he that utters them.

Rom. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchednesn,
And fear'st to die ? famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,8
Contempt and beggary hang upon thy back,
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law .
The world affords no law to make thee rich ;
Then, be not poor, but break it, and take this.

Ap. My poverty, but not my will, consents.

Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.

Ap. Put this in any liquid thing you will,
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.

Rum. There is thy gold ; worse poison to men's

souls,

Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou may'st not

sell

[ sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell; buy food, and get thyself in flesh. —

6 Thus the old copies. Otway copied the line in his Caius
Marias, only changing starveth to stare.th, which has been adopted
into the text by Singer, and may be right. Pope changed "starw.
eth in thy eyes" to "stare within thy eyes." As it stands, iba
expression conveys a strong sense, though it will hardly bear an*
alysing. The two nouns with a verb in the singular was not
migrainmatical according to old usage. — In the next line, the
first quarto has, •' Upon thy back hangs ragged misery," which if
(traiigely preferred by some editors. H.

150 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V

Come, cordial, and not poison, go with me
To Juliet's grave, for there must I use thee.

[Exeunt

SCENE II. Friar LAURENCE'S CelL

Enter Friar JOHN.
John. Holy Franciscan friar ! brother, ho f

Enter Friar LAURENCE

Lou. This same should be the voice of fnai

John. —

Welcome from Mantua : What says Romeo f
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

John. Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,1
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth ;
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.

1 Each friar had always a companion assigned him by the su-
perior, when he asked leave to go out. In the Visitatio Notabilis
de Seleborne, a curious record printed in White's Natural History
of Selborne, Wykeham enjoins the canons not to go abroad with-
out leave from the prior, who is ordered on such occasions to as-
sign the brother u companion, " ne suspicio sinistra vel scaudalum
oriatur." There is a similar regulation in the statutes of Trinitj
College, Cambridge. So in the poem :

" Apace our frier John to Mantua him hyes,
And, for because in Italy it is a wonted gyse
That friers in the towne should seldome walke alone,
But of theyr covent ay should be accompanide with one
Of his profession, straight a house be fyndeth out,
In mynde to take some frier to walke the town about."

Shakespeare has departed from the poem, in supposing the pesti
lence to rage at Verona instead of Mantua.

8U. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 151

Lau. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo 1

John. I could not send it, — here it is again, —
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.

Lau. Unhappy fortune ! by my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice,* but full of charge,
Of dear import ; and the neglecting it
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence ;
Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight
Unto my cell.

John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee. [Exit.

Lau. Now must I to the monument alone.
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake ;
She will beshrew me much, that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents ;
But I will write again to Mantua,
And keep her at my cell till Romeo come :
Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb !

[Exit.

SCENE III.

A Church- Yard : in it a Monument belonging to
the Capulets.

Enter PARIS, and his Page, bearing Flowers and a
Torch.

Par. Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand

aloof ; —

Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yond' yew-trees lay thee all along,1

* That is, was not on a trivial or idle matter, but on a subject
of importance. See Act Hi sc. 1, note 9.

1 All the old copies except the first quarto have " young trees *
instead of " yetc-trees." U.

152 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V

Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground ;
So shall no foot upon the church-yard tread,
(Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,)
But thou shall hear it : whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear'st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee ; go.

Page. I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the church-yard ; yet I will adventure.

[Retires.

Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed

I strew.

O woe ! thy canopy is dust and stones,
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew ;
Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans •
The obsequies, that J for thee will keep,
Nightly shall be, to strew thy grave and weep.*

[The Boy whistks.

The boy gives warning, something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
To cross my obsequies, and true-love's rite 1
What! with a torch? — muffle me, night, awhile.

[Retires*

Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR, with a Torch, Mat-
tock, fyc.

Rom. Give me that mattock, and the wrenching
iron.

* Instead of these six lines, the quarto of 1597 has the follow
\Df seven, which are preferred by some editors :

" Sweet flower, with flowers I strew thy bridal bed :
Sweet tomb, that in thy circuit dost contain
The perfect model of eternity,
Fair Juliet, that with angels dost remain,
Accept this latest favour at my hands,
That living- honour'd thee, and, being dead,
Wra funera praises do ariorn thy tomb." B.

SC. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 153

Hold, take this etter : early in the morning

See thou deliver it to my lord and father.

Give me the light : Upon thy life I charge thee,

Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof

And do not interrupt me in my course.

Why I descend into this bed of death,

Is, partly, to behold my lady's face ;

But, chiefly, to take thence from her dead finger

A precious ring, a ring that I must use

In dear employment. Therefore hence, begone:

But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry

In what I further shall intend to do,

By Heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,

And strew this hungry church-yard with thy limbs.

The time and my intents are savage-wild ;

More fierce, and more inexorable far,

Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea.

Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.

Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship. — Take

thou that :
Live, and be prosperous ; and farewell, good fellow.

BaL For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout :
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. [Retires

Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Th is I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

[Breaking open the Door of the Monument.
And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food !

Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague,
That murder'd my love's cousin ; — with which grief,
It is supposed, the fair creature died ; —
And here is come to do some villainous shame
To the dead bodies : I will apprehend him. —

[Advancing
Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague :

154 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V.

Can vengeance be pursued further than death ?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee :
Obey, and go with me ; for thou must die.

Rom. I must, indeed ; and therefore came 1

hither. —

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man ;
Fly hence and leave me: — think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee. — I beseech thee, youth,
Heap not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury : — O, begone !
By Heaven, I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm'd against myself:
Stay not, begone ; — live, and hereafter say,
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.

Par. I do defy thy conjurations,3
And apprehend thee for a felon here.

Rom. Wilt thou provoke me 7 then, have at thee,
boy. [Theyfght.

Page. O Lord ! they fight : I will go call the watch.

[Exit Page.

Par. O, I am slain ! [Falls.] — If thou be mer-
ciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. [Dies.

Rom. In faith, I will. — Let me peruse this

face : —

Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris. —
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode 1 I think
He told me, Paris should have married Juliet :

8 So the quarto of 1597: that of 1599 has commi ration ; the
later copies, commiseration. Conjurations are earnest requests or
entreaties : the verb conjure is still much used in the same sense.
Mr. Collier, however, retains the later reading, alleging that " the
sense of commiseration is clear ; not so of conjurations." What
can the man mean 1 Conjuration* is just the word wanted fo;
the plac*. H.

SC. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 155

Said he not so ? or did I dream it so ?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
T«> think it was so? — O ! give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book !
I'll '^iry thee in a triumphant grave, —
A grave 1 O, no ! a lantern, slaughter'd youth : 4
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd. —

[Laying PARIS in the Monument
How oft, when men are at the point of death,
Have they been merry ? which their keepers call
A lightning before death :5 O ! how may I
Call this a lightning 1 — O, my love ! my wife !
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty : 8

4 A lantern does not here signify an enclosure for a lighted can
die, but a louvre, or what in ancient records is styled lanternium •
that is, a spacious round or octagonal turret full of windows, by
means of which cathedrals and sometimes halls are illuminated,
such as the beautiful lantern at Ely Minster. The same word,
with the same sense, occurs in Churchyard's Siege of Edinborough
Castle : " This lofty seat and lantern of that land like lodestarre
stode, and lokte o'er ev'ry slreete." And in Holland's translation
of Pliny : " Hence came the louvers and lanternes reared over the
roofes of temples." A presence is a public room, which is at times
the presence-chamber of a sovereign.

* This idea frequently occurs in old dramas. So in The Down-
fa 1 of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601 :

" I thought it was a lightning before death,
Too sudden to be certain."

* So in Sidney's Arcadia : " Death being able to divide the
»oule, but not the beauty, from her body." — This speech yields
another apt instance of the care and skill with which the " cor-
rected, augmented, and amended" copy of this play was elabo-
rated. The quarto of 1597 gives merely the following 1

" Ah, dear Juliet !

How well thy beauty doth become this grave !
O ! I believe that unsubstantial death
Is amorous, and doth court my love i

J5t> ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT ?

Thou art not conquer'd ; beauty's ensign yet

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death's pale flag is not advanced there. —

Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet 1

O ! what more favour can I do to thee,

Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain,

To sunder his that was thine enemy 1

Forgive me, cousin ! — Ah, dear Juliet !

Why art thou yet so fair 1 Shall I believe

That unsubstantial death is amorous ; 7

And that the lean abhorred monster keeps

Thee here in dark to be his paramour?

For fear of that, I will still stay with thee,

Therefore will I, O here, O ever here !

Set up my everlasting rest,

With worms, that are thy chamber-maids.

Come, desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary barge t

Here's to my love. — O, true apothecary !

Thy drugs are swift : thus with a kiss I die." H.

7 The old copies, except the first quarto, read thus : " I will be-
lieve, shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous." Where
" I will believe " is obviously but another reading for " shall I be-
lieve." Collier, however, retains both ! — A connection is trace-
able between parts of this speech and some lines in Daniel's Com-
plaint of Rosamond, published in 1592. In the first five lines the
ghost of Rosamond is speaking of her death, and in the others ii
reporting what her royal lover spoke when he came and found her
dead:

" But now, the poison, spread through all my veins,
'Gan dispossess my living senses quite;
And nought-nespecting death, the last of pains,
Plac'd his pale colours, lh' ensign of his might,
Upon his new-got spoil before his right."

" Ah ! now, methinks, I see, death, dallying, teek*
To entertain itself in love's sweet place :
Decayed roses of discolour'd cheeks
Do yet retain dear notes of former grace,
And ugly death sits fair icithin her face ;
Sweet remnants resting of vermilion red,
That deaih itself doubts whether she be dead." B

9C. 111. ROMEO AND JULIET 157

And never from this palace of dim night

Depart again :8 here, here will 1 remain

With worms that are thy chambermaids ; O! here

Will I set up my everlasting rest,

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh. — Eyes, look your

last !

Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O, you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death ! —
Come, bitter conduct,9 come, unsavoury guide !
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark !
Here's to my love ! [Drinks.] — O, true apothecary !
Thy drugs are quick. — Thus with a kiss I die.

[Dies

Enter, at the other end of the Church-yard, Friar
LAURENCE, with a Lantern, Crow, and Spade.

Fri. St. Francis be my speed ! how oft to-night
Have my old feet stumbled at graves ! lo — Who's
there 1

8 All the old copies except the first quarto have a remarkable
corruption here which is not easy to be accounted for. Whether
the matter were a various reading by the Poet, or an interpolation
by the players, is uncertain ; but the confusion it makes shows that
it could not have been meant by Shakespeare as a part of the text.
It may also be cited as proving that the folio must have been
printed from one of the quarto copies. After the words, " Depart
again," are added the following lines :

" Come, lie thou in my arms.
Here's to thy health, where'er thou tumblest in.
O, true apothecary ! thy drugs are quick.
Thus with a kiss I die. Depart again." H.

* Conduct for conductor. So in a former scene : " And fire-
eyed ftny be my conduct now.''

10 This accident was reckoned ominous. So in King Richard
Ul., Hastings, going to execution, says, — "Three times to-ilaj

168 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V

BaL Here's one, a friend, and one that know?
you well.

Fri. Bliss be upon you ! Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond' that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless skulls 1 as I discern,
It burneth in the Capels' monument.

BaL It doth so, holy sir ; and there's my master,
One that you love.

Fri. Who is it 1

BaL Romeo.

Pri. How long hath he been there 1

BaL Full half an hour.

Fri. Go with me to the vault.

BaL I dare not, sir:

My master knows not but I am gone hence,
And fearfully did menace me with death,
If I did stay to look on his intents.

Fri. Stay, then, I'll go alone. Fear comes upon

me ;
O ! much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.11

ItaL As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.1*

my foot-cloth horse did stumble." — After this line, some editors
have added another from the first quarto, thus : "Who is it that
consorts so late the dead 1 " H.

11 So the quarto of 1599 ; that of 1609 and the folio have "un-
lucky thing." H.

14 This is one of the touches of nature that would have escaped
the hand of any painter less attentive to it than Shakespeare
What happens to a [,'irson while he is under the manifest influence
of fear, will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream
Homer represents Rhesus dying, fast asleep, and, as it were, he
holding his enemy in a dream, plunging a sword into his bosom
Euslathius and Dacier both applaud this image as very natural
for a man in such a condition, says Mr. Pope, awakes no further
than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not a
reality, but a vision.- STF.KVENS.

SC. III. ROMEO AND JULIF.T. 169

Fri. [Advancing.] Romeo !

Alack, alack ! what blood is this, which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre ? —
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour'd by this place of peace 1 —

[Entering the Monument.

Romeo ! O, pale ! — Who else ? what ! Paris too ?
And steep'd in blood ? — Ah ! what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance ! —
The lady stirs. [JULIET wakes.

Jul. O, comfortable friar ! where is my lord ?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. — Where is my Romeo?

[Noise within.

Pri. I hear some noise. — Lady, come from that

nest

Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.
A greater Power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents ; come, come away .
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead ;
And Paris too : come, I'll dispose of thee
Among i\ sisterhood of holy nuns.
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming ,
Come, go, good Juliet, — [Noise again.] I dare no
longer stay. [Exit.

Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. —
What's here ? a cup, clos'd in my true love's hand 1
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end. —
O churl ! drink all, and leave no friendly drop,
To help me after 7 — I will kiss thy lips ;
Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them,
To muke me die with a restorative. [Kisses him*
Thy lips are warm !1J

11 Shakespeare has been arraigned for making Romeo die b«

160 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V

1 Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy:- Which way?
JuL Yea, noise? — then I'll be brief. — O, happj

dagger ! [Snatching ROMEO'S Dagger.

This is thy sheath ; [Stabs herself.] there rest, and

let me die.14 [Falls on ROMEO, and dies

Enter Watch, with the Page of PARIS.

Page. This is the place ; there, where the torch

doth burn.
1 Watch. The ground is bloody: Search about

the church-yard.
Go, some of you, whoe'er you find, attach. —

[Exeunt some.

fore Juliet awakes from her trance, and thus losing a happy op
portunity of introducing an affecting scene between these unfor-
tunate lovers. Schlegel remarks, that " the Poet seems to have
hit upon what was best. There is a measure of agitation, beyond
which all that is superadded becomes torture, or glides off inef-
fectually from the already-saturated mind. In case of the cruel
reunion of the lovers for an instant, Romeo's remorse for his over-
hasty self-murder, Juliet's despair over her deceitful hope, at first
cherished, then annihilated, that she was at the goal of her wishes,
must have deviated into caricatures. Nobody surely doubts thiit
Shakespeare was able to represent these with suitable force ; but
here every thing soothing was welcome, in order that we may not
be frightened out of the melancholy, to which we willingly resign
ourselves, by too painful discords. Why should we heap still
more upon accident, that is already so guilty ? Wherefore shall
not the tortured Romeo quietly

' Shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From his world-wearied flesh ? '

He holds his beloved in his arms, and, dying, cheers himself with
a vision of everlasting marriage. She also seeks death, in a kiss,
upon his lips. These last moments must belong unparticipated to
tenderness, that we may hold fast to the thought, that love lives,
although the lovers perish."

14 All the old copies except the first quarto have rust instead
of rest. Mr. Dyce surely is right in saying that, " at such a mo-
ment, the thoughts of Juliet were not likely to wander away to
the future rusting of the d igger ; she only wishes it, by resting
in her boaom as in its sheati. to give her instant death." H.

BC. Ill ROMEO AND JULIET. 161

Pitiful sight ! here lies the county slain ;
And Juliet bleeding ; warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain these two days buried. —
Go, tell the prince, — run to the Capulets, —
Raise up the Montagues, — some others search : —
[Exeunt other Watchmen.

We see the ground whereon these woes do lie ;
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry.

Enter some of the Watch, with BALTHASAR

2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man ; we found him in

the church-yard.

1 Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince come
hither.

Enter another Watchman, with Friar LAURENCE.

3 Watch. Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs, and

weeps :

We took this mattock and this spade from him,
As he was coming from this church-yard side.
1 Watch. A great suspicion : stay the friar too.

Enter the Prince and Attendants.

Prince. What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning's rest 1

Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and Others.

Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek
abroad ?

Lady C. The people in the street cry — Romeo,
Some — Juliet, and some — Paris ; and all run,
With open outcry toward our monument.

162 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V

Prince. What fear is this, which startles in our

ears'?15
1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paria

slain ;

And Romeo dead ; and Juliet, dead before,
Warm and new-kill'd.

Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul

murder comes.
1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's

man,

With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.

Cap. O, Heaven ! — O, wife ! look how our daugh-
ter bleeds !

This dagger hath mista'en, — for lo ! his house
Is empty on the back of Montague, —
And is mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom.18

Lady C. O me ! this sight of death is as a bell,
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.

Enter MONTAGUE and Others.

Prince. Come, Montague ; for thou art early up,
To see thy son and heir more early down.

Mon. Alas, my liege ! my wife is dead to-night ; IT

14 The old copies have your instead of our. Johnson made
the change, which, though perhaps not necessary to the sense
helps it a good deal. H.

18 The words " for lo ! his house is empty on the back of Mon-
tague," are parenthetical. It appears that the dagger was an-
ciently worn behind the back. So in Humor's Ordinarie : " See
you yon huge bum dagger at his back?" And in The Longer
Thou Livest the More Fool Thou Art, 1570 :

•' Thou must wear thy sword by thy side,
And thy dagger handsumly at thy bacte."

17 After this line the quarto of 1597 adds : " And young Ben
rolio is deceased too."

SO. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 103

Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath :
What further woe conspires against mine age 1

Prince. Look, and thou shah see.

Mon. O, thou untaught ! what manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a grave ?

Prince. Seal up the mouth of outcry for a while,11
Till we can clear these ambiguities,
And know their spring, their head, their true descent ;
And then will I be general of your woes,
And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murder ;
And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned, and myself excus'd.

Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know
in this.

Fri. I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet ;
And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife :
I married them ; and their stolen marriage-day
Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth'd, and would have married her perforce,
To county Paris : then comes she to me,

18 The old copies have outrage instead of outcry. It in not
easy to see what business outrage can have in such a place
The change is taken from Mr. Collier's second folio It is sup
ported by the preceding passage, — "All run with open outcrj
toward our monument. " H.

MJ4 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V

And, with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,
A sleeping potion ; which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
The form of death : meantime I writ to Romeo,
That he should hither come, as this dire night,
To help to take her from her borrovv'd grave,
Being the time the potion's force should cease
But he which bore my letter, friar John,
Was stay'd by accident ; and yesternight
Return'd my letter back. Then, all alone,
At the prefixed hour of her waking,
Came I to take her from her kindred's vault:
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo .
But, when I came, (some minute ere the time
Of her awakening,) here untimely lay
The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes ; and I entreated her come forth,
And bear this work of Heaven with patience :
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb ;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
All this I know ; and to the marriage
Her nurse is privy ; and, if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

Prince. We still have known thee for a holy

man. —
Where's Romeo's man 1 what can he say in this ?

Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's
death ;

BC. lit. ROMEO AND JULIET. 105

And then in post he came from Mantua,
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early hid me give his father ;
And threaten'd me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.

Prince. Give me the letter, I will look on it. —
Where is the county's page, that rais'd the watch !
Sirrah, what made your master in this place ?

Page. He came with flowers to strew his ladj'i

grave,

And bid me stand aloof, and so I did :
Anon, comes one with light to ope the tomb,
And, by and by, my master drew on him ;
And then I ran away to call the watch.

Prince. This letter doth make good the friar'*

words,

Their course of love, the tidings of her death ;
And here he writes, that he did buy a poison
Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet. —
Where be these enemies'? — Capulet ! Montague!
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That Heaven find means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords, too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen:19 — all are punish'd.

Cap. O, brother Montague ! give me thy hand :
This is my daughter's jointure ; for no more
Can I demand.

Mon. But I can give thee more ;

For I will raise her statue in pure gold ;
That, while Verona by that name is known,

19 Mercutio and Paris. Mercutio is expressly called the Prince's
kinsman in Act iii. sc. 4 ; and that Paris was also the Prince'*
kinsman, may lie inferred from what Romeo says : " Let me pe
ruse this face ; Mercutio's kinsman, noMe county Paris."

166 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V

There shall no figure at such rate be set,
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie ;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity !

Prince- A glooming peace this morning with it

brings ; 20

The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:21
For never was a story of more woe,
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. [Exeunt.

*° The quarto of 1597 reads, " A gloomy peace." To gloom
is an ancient verb, used by Spenser and other old writers.

11 This liue has reference to the poem from which the fable ia
taken ; in which the Nurse is banished for concealing the mar-
riage ; Romeo's servant set at liberty, because he had only acted
in obedience to his master's orders ; the Apothecary is hanged ;
while Friar Laurence was permitted to retire to a hermitage ncai
Veroiia, where he ended his life in penitence and tranquillity.

THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET.

THE story on which Shakespeare founded THE TRAGEDY or
HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK, was told by Saxo Grammat-
ieus, the Danish historian, whose work was first printed in 1514,
though written as early as 1204. The incidents as related by him
were borrowed by BeMeforest, and set forth in his Histoirts Tra-
giques. 1664. It was probably through the French version of Belle-
forest that the tale first found its way to the English stage. The
only English translation that has come down to us was printed in
1608 ; and of this only a single copy is known lo have survived.
The edition of 1608 was most likely a reprint ; but, if so, we have
no means of ascertaining when it was first printed: Mr. Collier
thinks there can be no doubt tt.at it originally came from the press
considerably before 1600. The only known copy is preserved
among Capell's books in the library of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, and has been lately republished by Collier in his Shake-
speare's Library. It is entitled " The History of Hambiet."

As there told, the story is, both in matter and style, uncouth and
barbarous in the last degree ; a savage, shocking tale of lust and
murder, unredeemed by a single touch of art or fancy in the nar-
rator. Perhaps there is nothing of the Poet's achieving more won-
derful than that he should have reared so superb a dramatic struct-
ure out of materials so scanty and so revolting. The scene of the
incidents is laid before the introduction of Christianity into Den-
mark, and when the Danish power held sway in England : further
than this, the time is not specified. So much of the story as was
made use of for the drama is soon told.

Roderick, king of Denmark, divided his kingdom into prov-
inces, and placed governors in them. Among these were two val-
iant and warlike brothers, Horvendile and Fengon. The greatest
bouour that men of noble birth could at that time win, was by ex-
ercising the art of f-iracy on the seas ; wherein Horvendile sur-
passed all others. Collere, king of Noiway, was so wrought upon

170 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

by his fame, that he challenged him to fight body to body ; uwl
the challenge was accepted on condition that tltp vanquished should
lose all the riches he had in his ship, and the vanquisher should
••ause his body to be honourably buried. Collere was slain ; ami
llorvendile, after making great havoc in Norway, returned home
with a mass of treasure, most of which he sent to King Roderick,
who thereupon gave him his daughter Geruth in marriage. Of
this marriage proceeded Hamblel, the hero of the tale.

All this so provoked the envy of Fengon, that lie determined U>
kill his brother. So, having secretly assembled certain men, when
Horvendile was at a banquet with his friends, he suddenly set upon
kim and slew him ; but managed his treachery with so much cun-
uing that no man suspected him. Before doing this, he had cor
rupted his brother's wife, and was afterwards married to her.
Young Hamblet, thinking that he was likely to fare no better than
his father had done, went to feigning himself mad, and made as
if he had utterly lost his wits ; wherein he used such craft that he
became an object of ridicule to the satellites of the court. Many
of his actions, however, were so shrewd, and his answers were
often so fit, that men of a deeper reach began to suspect some-
what, thinking that beneath his folly there lay hid a sharp and
pregnant spirit. So they counselled the king to try measures for
discovering his meaning. The plan hit upon for entrapping him
was, to leave him with some beautiful woman in a secret place,
where she could use her art upon him. To this end they led him
out into the woods, and arranged that the woman should there
meet with him. One of the men, however, who was a friend of
the Prince, warned him, by certain signs, of the danger that wai
threatening him : so he escaped that treachery.

Among the king's friends there was one who more than all the
rest suspected Hamblet's madness to be feigned ; and he counsel-
led the king to use some more subtle and crafty means for dis-
covering his purpose. His device was, that the king should make
as though he were going out on a long hunting excursion ; and
that, meanwhile, Hamblet should be shut up alone in a chamber
with his mother, some one being hidden behind the hangings to
hear their speeches. It was thought that, if there were 3113' craft
in the Prince, he would easily discover it to his mother, not fear-
ing that she would make known nis secret intent. So. the plot
being duly arranged, the counsellor went into the chamber secretly
and hid himself behind the arras, not long before the queen and
Hiimblet came thither. But the Prince, suspecting some treach-
erous practice, kept up his counterfeit of madness, and went to
heating with his arms, as cocks use to strike with their wings,
upon the hangings: feeling something stir under them, he cried,
" A rat, a rat ! " and thrust his sword into them ; which done, he
pulled the counsellor out half dead, and made an end of biro.

Hamblet then has a long interview with bis mother, who weep*

INTRODUCTION. 171

nnd torments herself, being1 sore grieved to see her only child made
A mere mockery. He Ia3-s before her the wickedness of her lift
and the crimes of her husband, and also lets her into the secret o<
his madness being feigned. " Behold," says he, " into what dis-
tress I am fallen, and to what mischief your over-great lightness
and want of wisdom have induced me, that I am constrained to
play the madman to save my life, instead of practising arms, fol-
lowing adventures, and seeking to make myself known as the true
heir of the valiant and virtuous Horvendile. The gestures of a
fool are fit for me, to the end that, guiding myself wisely therein,
I may preserve my life for the Danes, and the memory of my de-
ceased father ; for the desire of revenging his death is so engraven
ill my heart, that, if I die not shortly, I hope to take so great ven-
geance that these countries shall forever speak thereof. Never-
theless, I must stay my time and occasion, lest by making over-
great haste I be the cause of mine own ruin and overthrow. To
conclude, weep not, madam, to see my folly, but rather sigh and
lament your own offence ; for we are uot to sorrow and grieve at
other men's vices, but for our own misdeeds and great follies."

The interview ends in an agreement of mutual confidence be-
tween Hamblet and his mother ; all her anger at his sharp re-
proofs being forgotten in the joy she conceives, to behold the
gallant spirit of her son, and to think what she might hope from
bis policy and wisdom. She promises to keep his secret faithful-
ly, and to aid him all she can in his purpose of revenge ; swear-
ing to him that she had often hindered the shortening of his life,
and that she had never consented to tl\e murder of his father.

Fengon's next device was, to send Hamblet into England, with
secret letters to have him there put to death. Hamblet, again
suspecting mischief, comes to some speech with his mother, and
desires her not to make any show of grief at his departure, but
rather to counterfeit gladness at being rid of his presence. He
also counsels her to celebrate his funeral at the end of a year, and
assures her that she shall then see him return from his voyage.
Two of Fengon's ministers being sent along with him with seciet
letters to the king of England, when they were at sea, the Prince,
his companions being asleep, read their commission, and substi-
tuted for it one requiring the messengers to be hung. After this
was done, he returned to Denmark, and arrived the very da}' when
the Danes were celebrating his funeral, supposing him to be dead.
Fengon and his courtiers were then at their banquet, and Hamb-
»et's arrival provoked them the more to drink and carouse; where-
in Hamblet encouraged them, himself acting as butler, and keep-
ing them supplied with liquor, until they were all laid drunk on the
floor. When they were all fast asleep, he caused the hangings of
the room to fall down and cover them ; then, having nailed the
edges fast to the floor 10 that none could escape, he set fire to the
hall, ard all were bi rnt to death. Fengon having previously

172 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

withdrawn to his chamber, Hamblet then went to him, and. after
telling him what he had done, cut off his head with a sword.

The next day, Hamblet makes an oration to the Danes, laying
open to them his uncle's treachery, and what himself lias done in
revenge of his father's death ; whereupon he is unanimously elect-
ed king. After his coronation, he goes to England again. Find-
ing that the king of England has a plot for putting him to death.
he manages to kill him, and returns to Denmark with two wives.
He is afterwards assailed by his uncle Wiglerus, and finally be-
trayed to death by one of his English wives named Hermetrude,
who then marries Wiglerus.

There is, besides, an episodical passage in the tale, from which
the Poet probably took some hints towards the part of his hero,
especially fiis melancholy mood, and his suspicion that " the spirit
he has seen may be a devil : " " In those days, the north parts of
the world, living then under Satan's laws, were full of enchanters,
so that there was not any young gentleman that knew not some-
thing therein sufficient to serve his turn, if need required; and so
Hamblet, while his father lived, had been instructed in that devlish
art, whereby the wicked spirit abuseth mankind, and advertiseth
them, as he can, of things past. It toucheth not the matter herein
to discover the parts of divination in man, and whether this Prince^
by reason of his over-great melancholy, had received those im-
pressions, divining that which never any had before declared ; like
such as are saturnists by complexion, who oftentimes speak of
things which, their fury ceasing, they can hardly understand." It
is hardly needful to add, that Shakespeare makes his persons
Christians, giving them the sentiments and manners of a much
later period than they have in the tale ; though he still places the
scene at a time when England paid some sort of homage to the
Danish crown, which was before the Norman conquest.

The earliest edition of the tragedy, in its finished state, was a
quarto pamphlet of fifty-one leaves, the title-page reading thus :
« The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark : By Wil-
liam Shakespeare. Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as
much again as it was, according to the true and perfect copy. At
London : Printed by J. R. for N. L., and are to be sold at his
shop under St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet-street. 1604." The
same text was reissued in the same form in 1605, and again in
1611 j besides an undated edition, which is commonly referred to
1607, as it was entered at the Stationers' in the fall of that year.
In the folio of 1623, it stands the eighth of the tragedies, and is
without any marking of the Acts and scenes save in the first iwo
Acts. The folio also omits several passages that are among the
best in the play, and some of them highly important to the right
understanding of the hero's character. All these are duly attend-
ed to in our notes, so that they need not be specified here. On
the othei hand, the folio Vas a few short passages, and here and

INTRODUCTION. 173

Aere a line or two, that are not in the quartos. These also, are
duly noted as they occur. On the whole, the quartos give the
play considerably longer than the folio; the latter having been
most likely printed from a play-house copy, which had been short-
ened, in some cases not very judiciously, for the greater conve-
nience of representation.

From the words, " enlarged to almost as much again as it was,"
in the litle-page of 1604, it was for a long time conjecltirod that
the play had been printed before At length, in 1825, a single
copy of an earlier edition was discovered, and the text accuiately
reprinted, with the following litle-page : " The Tragical History
of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark : By William Shakespeare. As
it hath been divers times acted by his Highness Servants, in th«
city of London ; as also in (he two Universities of Cambridge and
Oxford, and elsewhere. At London : Printed for N. L. and John
Trundell. 1603." There is no doubt that this edition was pi-
ratical : it gives the play but about half as long as the later quar-
to- ; and carries in its face abundant evidence of having been
greatly marred and disfigured in the making-up.

As to the methods used in getting up the edition of 1603, a care-
ful examination of the text has satisfied us that they were much
the same as appear to have been made use of in the quarto issues
of King Henry V., and The Merry Wives of Windsor; of which
some account is given in our Introductions to those plays. From
divers minute particulars which cannot be specified without over-
much of detail, it seems very evident that the printing was done,
for the most part, from rude reports taken at the theatre during
representation, with, perhaps, some subsequent eking out and patch-
ing up from memory. There are indeed a few passages that seem
to he given with much purity and completeness ; they have an in-
tegrity of sense and language, that argues a faithful transcript ;
as. for instance, the speech of Voltimand in Act ii. sc. 2, which
scarcely differs at all from the speech as we have it : but there is
barely enough of this to serve as an exception to the rule. As to
the other parts, the garbled and dislocated state of the text, where,
we often have the first of a sentence without the last, or the last
without the first, or the first and last without the middle ; the con-
stant lameness of the verse where verse was meant, and the bun-
gling attempts to print prose so as to look like verse; — all this
proves beyond question, that the quarto of 1603 was by no means
a faithful transcript of the play as it then stood ; and the imper-
fectness is of just that kind and degree which would naturally ad-
here to the work of a slovenly or incompetent reporter.

On the other hand, it is equally clear, that at the time that copy
was taken the play must have been very different from what it
afterwards became. Polonius is there called Corambis, and his
servant, Montano. Divers scenes and passages, some of them
such as a reporter would have been least likely to omit, are there

174 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

wanting altogether. The Queen is there represented as concert-
ing and actively co-operating with Hamlet against the King's life;
and she has an interview of considerable length with Horatio, who
informs her of Hamlet's escape from the ship bound for England,
and of his safe arrival in Denmark ; of which scene the later issue*
have no traces whatsoever. All this fully ascertains that the play
must have undergone a thorough revisal after the making up of
the copy from which the first quarto was printed. But, what ii
not a little remarkable, some of the passages met with in the folio,
but no*, in the enlarged quartos, are found in the quarto of 1603 j
which shows that they were omitted in the later quartos, ai:d not
added afterwards.

Wi'b such and so many copies before us, it may well be asktd
where the true text of Hamlet is to be found. The quarto of
1603, though furnishing valuable aid in divers cases, is not of any
real authority : this is clear enough from what has already been
said about it. On the other hand, it can hardly be questioned that
the issue of 1604 was as authentic and as well authorised, as any
that were made of Shakespeare's plays while he was living. We
therefore take this as our main standard of the text, retaining,
however, all the additional passages found in the folio of 1623.
Moreover, the folio has many important changes and corrections
which no reasonable editor would make any question of adopting.
Mr. Knight indeed, who, after the true style of Knight-errantry,
everywhere gives himself up to an almost unreserved champion-
ship of the folio, takes that as the supreme authority. Rut in this
rase, as usual, his zeal betrays him into something of unfairness :
for wherever he prefers a folio reading, (and some of his prefer-
ences are odd enough,) he carefully notes it ; but in divers cases,
where the quarto readings are so clearly preferable that he dare
not reject them, we have caught him adopting them without mak-
ing any note of them. Taking the quarto of 1604 as our stand-
ard, whenever we adopt any variation of much importance from
this, it will be found specified in our notes. And in many other
cases, where the folio readings can plead any fair title to prefer
ence, we give them in the margin, though not ourselves preferring
them ; so that the reader can exercise his own choice in the
matter.

The next question to be considered is, at what time was the
tragedy of Hamlet originally written ? On this point we find it
extremely difficult to form a clear judgment. Thus imicn, how-
ever, is quite certain, that either this play was one of the Poet'§
very earliest productions, or else there was another play on the
same subject. This certainty rests on a passage in an Epistle bj
Thomas Nash, prefixed to Greene's Arcadia : " It is a common
practice now-a-days, among a sort of shifting companions that
run through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of
Knverint whereto they were born, and busy themselves with thi

INTRODUCTION. 175

endeavours of art, that could scarcely latinise the ir neck-verse, if
they should have need ; yet English Seneca, read by candle-light,
yields many good sentences, as ' Blood is a beggar,' and so forth;
and, if you entreat him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you
whi'le Hamlets, I should say handfuls, of tragical speeches."
The words, " trade of Noverint," show that this squib was pointed
at some writer of Hamlet, who had been known as an apprentice
in the law ; and Shakespeare's remarkable fondness for legal terms
and allusions naturally suggests him as the person referred to. Oc
the other hand, Nash's Epistle was written certainly as early as
1689, probably two years earlier, though this has been disputed.
In 1589 Shakespeare was in his twenty-sixth year, and his name
stood the twelfth in a list of sixteen, as a sharer in the Blackfrian
play-house. The chief difficulty lies in believing that he could
have been known so early as the author of a tragedy having Ham-
let for its hero ; but this difficulty is much reduced by the circum-
stance, that we have no knowledge how often or how much he may
have improved a piece of that kind even before the copy of 1603
was made up.

Again : It appears from Henslowe's accounts that a play of
Hamlet was performed in the theatre at Newington Butts on the
9th of June, 1594. At this time, "my lord admirell men and my
lord chamberlen men " were playing together at that theatre ; lhe>
latter of whom was the company to which Shakespeare belonged.
At the performance of Hamlet, Henslowe sets down nine shillings
as his share of the receipts ; whereas in case of new plays he
commonly received a much larger sum. Besides, the item in
question is without the mark which the manager usually prefixed
in case of a new play ; so that we may conclude the Hamlet of
1594 had at that time lost the feature of novelty. The question
is, whether the Hamlet thus performed was Shakespeare's ? That
it was so, might naturally be inferred from the fact that the Lord
Chamberlain's men were then playing there ; besides, it has at
least some probability, in (hat on the llth of the same month
Henslowe notes "The Taming of a Shrew" as having been per-
formed at the same place. Whether this latter were Shake-
speare's play, has been sufficiently considered in our Introduction
to The Taming of the Shrew.

The next particular, bearing upon the subject, is from a tract
by Thomas Lodge, printed in 1596, and entitled " Wit's Misery,
or The World's Madness, discovering the incarnate Devils of the
Age;" where one of the devils is said to be "a foul lubber, and
looks as pale as the vizard of the Ghost, who cried so miserably
at the theatre, Hamlet, revenge." All these three notices are re-
garded by Maloue and some others as referring to another play
of Hamlet, which they suppose to have been written by Thomas
Kyd ; though their only reason for thinking there was such an-
other play, is the alleged improbability of the Poet's having gf
parly written on that subject.

176 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

It is to be observed, further, that a copy of Speight's Chaucer
ence owned by Gabriel Harvey, and having his name written in
it, together wilh the date of 1598, has, among others, the follow-
ing manuscript note: "The younger sort take much delight iu
Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis; but his Lucrece, and his trage-
dy of Hamlet. Prince of Denmark, have it in them to please the
wiser sort." This, however, does not seem to infer any thing with
certainty as to time; since the name and date may have been
written when Harvey purchased the book, and the note at some
later period.

The only other contemporary notice to be quoted of the play,
is an entry at the Stationers' by James Roberts, on the 26th of
July, 1602 : " A Book, —The Revenge of Hamlet, Prince of Den-
mark, as it was lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain his Ser-
vants." As the quarto of 1604 was printed by James Roberts,
wo may reasonably conclude that this entry refers to the "en-
larged " form of the play. Why the publication was not made
till two years later, is beyond our reach • perhaps it was because
no copy could be obtained for the press, until the maimed ant)
stolen issue of 1603 had rendered it necessary to put forth an
edition in self-defence, " according to the true and perfect copy."
We have repeatedly seen that in the spring of 1603 " the Lord
Chamberlain's Servants " became " His Majesty's Servants ; "
or, as they are called in the title-page of 1603, " His Highness
Servants."

A piece of internal evidence fixes the date of the enlarged
Hamlet soon after the 22d of June, 1600. It is the reason as-
signed by Rosencrantz, in Act ii. sc. 2, why the players have left
the city and gone to travelling: " I think their inhibition comes by
means of the late innovation." What this "inhibition" was, has
been set forth in our Introduction to Twelfth Night ; so that it
need not be repeated here. The passage just quoted is not in the
copy of 1603 : a different reason is there assigned why the players
travel : " Novelty carries it away ; for the principal public audi-
ence that came to them are turned to private plays, and the humour
of children."

Plays were acted in private by the choir-boys of the Chapel
Royal and of St. Paul's before 1590, several of Lyly's pieces be-
ing used in that way. It appears that in 1591 these juvenile per-
formances had been suppressed ; as in the printer's address pre-
fixed to Lyly's Endymion, which was published that year, we are
told that, " since the plays in Paul's were dissolved, there are cer-
tain comedies come to my hand." Nash, in his " Have with You
to Saffron Waldon," published in 1596, expresses a wish to see
the "plays at Paul's up again;" which infers that at that time
the interdict was still in force. In 1600, however, we find that the
interdict had been taken off', a play attributed to Lyly being thai
year "acted bj the children of Paul's." Frsrr this time forward

INTRODUCTION- 177

ihese juvenile performances appear to have been kept up, both ia
private and in public, until 1612, when, on account of the abuses
attending them, they were again suppressed.

It would seem, then, that the reason assigned in the text of 1603
refers to a period when the acting of children was only in private,
and was regarded as a novelty ; whereas at the time of the latef
text the qualities of novelty and privacy had been removed. And
it appears not improbable, that the taking-off of the interdict be-
fore 1600, and the consequent revival of plays by children, was
" the late innovation " by means of which the " inhibition '' bad
been brought about. Howbeit, so far as regards the date of the
older text, the argument is by no means conclusive, and we are
not for laying any very marked stress upon it ; but it seems, at
all events, worth considering. Its bearing as to the time of the
later text is obvious enough, and will hardly be questioned.

Knight justly remarks, that the mention of Termagant and
Herod, which occurs in the quarto of 1603, refers to a time when
those personages trod the stage in pageants and mysteries ; and
that the directions to the players, as given in the older text, point
to the customs and conduct of the stage, as it was before Shake-
speare had, by his example and influence, raised and reformed it.
The following passage from the first copv will show what we
mean: -'And then you have some again, that keeps one suit of
jests, as a man is known by one suit of apparel ; and gentlemen
quote his jests down in their tables before they come 'to the play,
as thus: 'Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge?' and, 'You
owe me a quarter's wages;' and, ' My coat wants a cullison;'
and, 'Your beer is sour;' and, blabbering with his lips, and thus
keeping in his cinque-a-pace of jests, when, God knows, the warm
clown cannot make a jest unless by chance, as the blind man
catcheth a hare." From the absence of all this in the enlarged
copy, we should naturally conclude that the evil referred to had at
that time been done away, or at least much diminished. And in-
deed a comparison of the two texts in this part of the play will
•atisfy any one, we think, that, during the interval between them,
the stage bad been greatly elevated and improved : divers bad
Customs, no doubt, had been "reformed indifferently ;" so that
tne point still remaining was, to " reform them altogether."

As to the general character of the additions in the enlarged
Harnlet, it is to be noted that these are mostly in the contempla-
tive and imaginative parts ; very little being added in the way of
action and incident. And in respect of the former there is indeed
no comparison between the two copies : the difference is literally
immense, and of such a kind as evinces a most astonishing growth
of intellectual power and resource. In the earlier text, we have
little more than a naked, though, in the main, well-ordered and
firm knit skeleton, which, in the later, is everywhere replenished
and glorified with large, rich volumes of thought and poetry ;

1 78 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DKNMARK.

where all that is incidental or circumstantial is made subordinate
lo the living energies of mind and soul. The difference is likn
that of a lusty grove of hickory or maple brethren in December
with the winds whistling through them, and in June with the birds
singing in them.

So that the enlarged Hamlet probably marks the germination
of that "thoughtful philosophy," as Hallam calls it, which never
afterwards deserted the Poet ; though time did indeed abate its
excess, and reduce it under his control ; whereas it here overflows
all bounds, and sweeps onward unchecked, so as to form the very
character of the piece. Moreover, this play, in common with
several others, though in a greater degree, bears symptoms of a
much saddened and aggrieved, not to say embittered temper of
mind : it is fraught, more than any other, with a spirit of profouuH
and melancholy cogitation ; as if written under the influence of
some stroke that had shaken the Poet's disposition with thoughts
beyond the reaches of his soul ; or as if he were casting about in
the darker and sterner regions of meditation in quest of an anti-
dote for some deep distress that had touched him. For there cas
be little doubt, that the birth and first stages of " the philosophic
mind" were in his case, for some cause unknown to us. hung
about with clouds and gloom, which, however, were afterwards
olown off, and replaced by an atmosphere of unblemished clear-
ness and serenity. Hallam has remarked upon this introversive
and darkly-brooding season of the Poet's mind, in a superb strain
of criticism, which has been quoted in our Introduction to Meas-
ure for Measure.

From all which may be gathered how appropriately this play
has been described as a tragedy of thought. Such is indeed its
character. And in this character it stands alone, and that, not
only of Shakespeare's dramas, but of all the dramas in being. As
for action, the play has little that can be properly so called. The
scenes are indeed richly diversified with incident ; but the inci-
dents, for the most part, engage our attention only as serving to
Uart and shape the hero's far-reaching trains of reflection ; them-
selves being lost sight of in the wealth of thought and sentiment
woich they call forth. In no other of Shakespeare's plays does
the interest turn so entirely on the hero ; and that, not because he
overrides the other persons and crushes their individuality under.
as Richard III. does ; but because his life is all centered in the
mind, and the effluence of his mind and character is around all the
others and within them ; so that they are little interesting to us.
but for his sake, for the effects they have upon him, and the thoughts
he has of them. Observe, too, that of all dramatic personages,
" out of sight, out of mind," can least be said of him : on the
contrary, he is never more in mind, than when out of sight ; aud
whenever others come in sight, the effect still is, to remind us of
him and deepen our interest in him

INTRODUCTION. 179

The character of Hamlet has caused more of perplexity and
discussion than any other in the whole range of art. He lias a
wonderful interest for all, yet none can explain him ; and perhaps
he is therefore the more interesting1 because inexplicable. Wo
have found by experience, that one seems to understand him bet-
ter after a little study than after a great deal, and that the less
one sees into him. the more apt one is to think he sees ihrc">igh
him ; in which respect he is indeed like nature herself. We snail
not presume to make clear what so many better eyes have fnun j
and left dark. The most we can hope to do is, to sMrt a few
thoughts, not towards explaining him, but towards showing why
he cannot be explained ; nor to reduce the variety of opinion*
touching him, but rather to suggest whence that variety proceed^
and why.

One man considers Hamlet great, but wicked ; another, good,
but weak ; a third, that he lacks courage, and dare not act ; a
fourth, that he has too much intellect for his will, and so thinks
away the time of action : some conclude him honestly mad ; others,
that his madness is wholly feigned. Yet, notwithstanding this di-
versity of conclusions, all agree in thinking and speaking of him
as an actual person. It is easy to invest with plausibility almost
any theory regarding him, but very hard to make any theory com-
prehend the whole subject ; and, while all are impressed with the
truth of the character, no one is satisfied with another's view of it.
The question is, why such unanimity as to his being a man. and
at the same time such diversity as to what sort of a man he is ?

Now, in reasoning about facts, we are apt to forget what com-
plex and many-sided things they are. We often speak of them
as very simple and intelligible; and in some respects they are so;
but, in others, they are inscrutably mysterious. For they present
manifold elements and qualities in unity and consistency, and so
carry a mauifoldness of meaning which cannot be gathered up
into logical expression. Even if we seize and draw out severally
all the properties of a fact, still we are as far as ever from pro-
ducing the effect of their combination. Thus there is somewhat
in facts that still eludes the cunningest analysis ; like the vital
principle, which no subtlety of dissection can grasp or overtake.
It is this mysteriousness of facts that begets our respect for them i
could we master them, we should naturally lose our regard for
them. For, to see round and through a thing, implies a sort of
conquest over it ; and when we seem to have conquered a thing,
we are apt to put off that humility towards it, wnicb is both the
better part of wisdom, and also our key to the remainder.

This complexity of facts supposes the material of innumerable
theories : for, in such a multitude of properties belonging to one
and the same thing, every man's mind may take hold of some
special consideration above the rust ; and when we look at facts
through a given theory they naturally seem to prove but that 0114

18C HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

though they would really afford equal proof of fifty others. Hence
there come to be divers opinions respecting the same thing1 ; ano
men arrive at opposite conclusions, forgetting-, that of a given fact
many things may be true in their place and degree, yet none of
them true in such sort as to impair the truth of others.

Now, Hamlet is all varieties of character in one ; he is con«
tinually turning1 up a new side, appearing under a new phase, un-
dergoing some new development ; so that he touches us at all
points, and, as it were, surrounds us. This complexity and ver-
satility of character are often mistaken for inconsistency : hence
the contradictory opinions respecting him, different minds taking
very different impressions of him, and even the same mind, at
different times. In short, like other facts, he is many-sided, so
that many men of many minds may see themselves in different
sides of him ; but, when they compare notes, and find him agree~
ing with them all, they are perplexed, and are apt to think him
inconsistent : in so great a diversity of elements, they lose the per-
ception of identity, and cannot see how he cac be so many, and
still be but one. Poubtless he seems the more real for this very
cause ; our inability to see through him, or to discern the source
and manner of his impression upon us, brings him closer to nature,
makes him appear the more like a fact, and so strengthens his
hold on our thoughts. For, where there is life, there must needs
be more or less of change, the very law of life being identity in
mutability ; and in Hamlet the variety and rapidity of changes
are so managed as only to infer the more intense, active, and pro-
lific vitality ; though, in so great a multitude of changes, it is ex-
tremely difficult to seize the constant principle.

Coleridge's view of Hamlet is much celebrated, and the cur-
rency it has attained shows there must be something of truth in it.
" In the healthy processes of the mind," says he, " a balance is
constantly maintained between the impressions from outward ob-
jects and the inward operations of the intellect : for, if there be
an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, man thereby becomes
the creature of mere meditation, and loses his natural power of
action. Now, one of Shakespeare's modes of creating characters
is, -to conceive any one intellectual or moral faculty in morbid ex-
cess, and then to place himself, Shakespeare, thus mutilated or
diseased, under given circumstances. In Hamlet he seems to
have wished to exemplify the moral necessity of a due balance
between our attention to the objects of our senses, and our med-
itation on the workings of our minds — an equilibrium between
the real and the imaginary worlds. In Hamlet this balance is
disturbed : his thoughts and the images of his fancy are for more
vivid than bis actual perceptions ; and his very perceptions, in-
stantly passing through the medium of his contemplations, acquire,
as they pass, a form and colour not naturally their own. Hence
we see a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a

INTRODUCTION. 181

proportionate aversion to real notion, consequent upon it. with all
its symptoms and accompanying1 qualities. This character Shake-
speare places in circumstances, under which it is obliged to act on
the spur of the moment : — Hamlet is brave and careless of death ;
but he vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought,
nnd loses the power of action in the energy of resolve.

" The effect of this overbalance of the imaginative power is
beautifully illustrated in the everlasting brooding-s and superfluous
activities of Hamlet's mind, which, unseated from its healthy re-
lation, is constantly occupied with the world within, and abstracted
from t'fie world without ; giving substance to shadows, and throw-
ing a mist over all common-place actualities. It is the nature of
thought to he indefinite ; — defiuitencss belongs to external imagery
alone. Hence it is that the sense of sublimity arises, not from the
§ight of an outward object, but from the beholder's reflection upon
it ; not from the sensuous impression, but from the imaginative re-
flex. Few ha\7e seen a celebrated waterfall without feeling some-
thing1 akin to disappointment : it is only subsequently that the im-
age comes back full into the mind, and brings with it a train of
grand or beautiful associations. Hamlet feels this ; his senses are
in a trance, and he looks upon external things as hieroglyphics."

This is certainly very noble criticism ; and our main ground of
doubt as to the view thus given is, that Hamlet seems hold, en-
ergetic, and prompt enough in action, when his course is free of
moral impediments ; as, for instance, in his conduct on shipboard,
touching the commission, where his powers of thought all range
themselves under the leading of a most vigorous and steady will.
•Our own belief is, though we are far from absolute in it, that the
Poet's design was, to conceive a man great, perhaps equally so,
in a.l the elements of character, mental, moral, and practical; and
then to place him in such circumstances, bring such motives to bear
npDn him, and open to him such sources of influence and reflec-
tion, that all his greatness should be morally forced to display it-
self in the form of thought, even his strength of will having no
practicable outlet but through the energies of the intellect. A
brief review of (he delineation will, if we mistake not, discover
gome reason for this belief.

Up to the time of his father's death, Hamlet's mind, busied in
developing its innate riches, had found room for no sentiments to-
wards others but generous trust and confidence. Delighted with
the appearances of good, and shielded by his rank from the naked
approaches of evil, he had no motive to pry through the semblance
into the reality of surrounding characters. The ideas of princely
elevation and moral rectitude, springing up simultaneously in his
mind, had intertwisted their fibres closely together. While the
chaste forms of young imagination had kept his own heart pure,
he bad framed his conceptions of others according to the model
within himself. To the feelings of the son, the prince, the gentlfv

182 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

man, the friend, the scholar, had lately been joined thoM». of the
lover ; and his heart, oppressed with its own hopes and joys, had
breathed forth its fulness in " almost all the holy vows of heaven."
In his father he had realized the ideal of character which he as-
pired to exemplify. Whatsoever noble images and ideas he had
gathered from the fields of poetry and philosophy, he had learned
to associate with that venerated name. To the throne he looked
foiward with hope and fear, as an elevation for diffusing the bless-
ings of a wise sovereignty, and receiving the homage of a grateful
submission. As the crown was elective, he regarded his prospects
of attaining it as suspended on the continuance of his father's lift,
till he could discover in himself such virtues as would secure him
the succession. In his father's death, therefore, he lost the main
stay of both his affections and his pretensions.

Notwithstanding, the foundations of his peace and happinesi
were yet unshaken. The prospects of the man were perhaps all
the brighter, that those of the prince had faded. The fireside and
the student's bower were still open to him ; truth and beauty,
thought and affection, had not hidden their faces from him : with a
mind saddened, but not diseased, his bereavement served to deepen
end chasten his sensibilities, without untuning their music. Cun-
ning and quick of heart to discover and appropriate the remuner-
ations of life, he could compensate the loss of some objects with
a more free and tranquil enjoyment of such as remained. In the
absence of his father, he could concentrate upon his mother the
feelings hitherto shared between them ; and, in cases like this,
religion towards the dead comes in to heighten and sanctify an
affection for the living. Even if his mother too had died, the loss,,
however bitter, would not have been baleful to him ; for, though
separated from the chief objects of love and trust and reverencey
he would still have retained those sentiments themselves unim
paired. It is not his mother, however, but his faith in her. that he
has to part with. To his prophetic soul, the hasty and incestuous
marriage brings at once conviction of his mother's infidelity, and
suspicion of his uncle's treachery, to his father. Where Le has
most loved and trusted, there he has been most deceived. The
sadness of bereavement now settles into the deep gloom of a
wounded spirit, and life seems rather a burden to be borne than a
blessing to be cherished. In this condition, the appearance of the
Ghost, its awful disclosures, and more awful injunctions, confirm-
ing the suspicion of his uncle's treachery, and implicating his
mother in the crime, complete his desolation of mind.

Nevertheless, he still retains all his integrity and uprightness of
•oul. In the depths of his being, even below the reach of con-
sciousness, there lives the instinct and impulse of a moral law with
which the injunction of the Ghost stands in direct conflict. What
is the quality of the act required of him ? Nothing less, indeed,
than to kill at once his uncle, his mother's husband, and his king ;

INTRODUCTION. 183

and this, not as an act of justice, and in a judicial manner, hut at
an act of revenge, and by assassination ! How shall he justify
•uch a deed to the world? How vindicate himself from the very
crime thus revenged 1 For, as he cannot subpoena the Ghost, th<5
evidence on which he must act is in its nature available only in
the court of his own conscience. To serve any good end either
for himself or for others, the deed must so stand in the public eye,
as it does in his own ; else he will, in effect, be setting an example
and precedent of murder, not of justice.

Thus Hamlet's conscience is divided, not merely against his
inclination, but against itself. However he multiplies to himself
reasons and motives for the deed, there yet springs up, from a
depth in his nature which reflection has not fathomed, an over-
ruling impulse against it. So that we have the triumph of a pure
moral nature over temptation in its most imposing form, — th«
form of a sacred call from heaven, or what is such to him. Hd
thinks he ought to do the thing, resolves that he will do it, blames
himself for not doing it; but there is a power withiii him which
still outwrestles his purpose. In brief, the trouble lies not in him-
self, but in his situation ; it arises from the impossibility of trans-
lating the outward call of duty into a free moral impulse ; and
until so translated he cannot perform it ; for in such an undertak-
ing he must act from himself, not from another.

This strife of incompatible duties seems the trae source of
Hamlet's practical indecision. His moral sensitiveness, shrinking
from the dreadful mandate of revenge, throws him back upon his
reflective powers, and sends him through the abysses of thought
in quest of a reconciliation between his conflicting duties, that so
he may shelter either the performance of the deed from the re-
proach of irreligion, or the non-performance from that of filiaj
impiety. Moreover, on reflection he discerns something in the
mandate that makes him question its source : even his filial rev-
erence leads him first to regret, then to doubt, and finally to dis-
believe, that his father has laid on him such an injunction. It
seems more likely that the Ghost should be a counterfeit, than
that his father should call him to such a deed. Thus his mind is
set in quest of other proofs. But when, by the stratagem of the
play, he has made the King's guilt unkennel itself, this demon-
stration again arrests his hand, because his own conscience it
startled into motion by the revelations made from that of another.
Seeking grounds of action in the workings of remorse, the very
proofs, which to his mind would justify the inflicting of death,
themselves spring from something worse than death.

And it should be remarked, withal, that by the very process of
the case he is put in immediate contact with supernatural in-
fluences. The same voice that calls him to the undertaking also
unfolds to him the retributions of futurity. The thought of that
eternal blazon, which must not be to ears of flesh and

184 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

entrances him in meditation on the awful realities of the invisible
world ; so that, while nerved by a sense of the duty, he is at the
same time shaken by a dread of the responsibility. Tuns the Ghost
works in Hamlet a sort of preternatural development : its disclo-
•sures bring forth into clear apprehension some moral ideas which
before were but dim presentiments in him. It is as if be were
born into the other world before dying out of this. And what is
thus developed in him is at strife with the injunction laid upon him.

Thus it appears, that Hamlet is distracted with a purpose which
he is at once too good a son to dismiss, and too good a man to
perform. Under an injunction with which he knows not what to
do, he casts about, now for excuses, now for censures, of his non-
performance; and religion still prevents him from doing what filial
piety reproves him for leaving undone. Not daring to abandon
the design of killing the King, he is yet morally incapable of form-
ing any plan for doing it : he can only go through the work, as
indeed he does at last, under a sudden frenzy of excitement, caused
by some immediate provocation ; not so much acting, as being
acted upon ; rather as an instrument of Providence, than as a self-
determining agent.

Properly speaking, then, Hamlet, we think, does not lack force
of will. In him, will is strictly subject to reason and conscience ;
and it rather shows strength than otherwise in refusing to move in
conflict with them. We are apt to measure men's force of will
only by what they do, whereas the true measure thereof often lies
rather in what they do not do. On this point, Mr. E. P. Whipple
suggests, that "will is a relative term ; and, even admitting that
Hamlet possessed more will than many who act with decision, the
fact that his other powers were larger in proportion justifies the
common belief, that he was deficient in energy of purpose." But
this, it strikes us. does not exactly meet the position ; which is,
that force of will is shown rather in holding still, than in moving,
where the moral understanding is not satisfied ; and that Hamlet
seems to lack rather the power of seeing what he ought to do, than
of doing what he sees to be right. The question is, whether the
peculiarity of this representation is not meant to consist in the hero
being so placed, that strength of will has its proper outcome rather
in thinking than in acting ; the working of his whole mind being
thus rendered as anomalous as his situation ; which is just what
.e subject requires. Will it be said, that Hamlet's moral scruples
are born of an innate reluctance to act? that from defect of will
he wishes to hold back, and so hunts after motives for doing so 1
We should ourselves be much inclined to say so, but that those
scruples seem to be the native and legitimate offspring of reason
There being, as we think, sufficient grounds for them out of him
we cannot refer them to any infirmity of his as their source.

It is true, Hamlet takes to himself all the blame of his iudi
nision. This, we think, is one of the finest points iu the delinea-

INTRODUCTION. 186

lion. For true virtue does not publish itself: radiating from the
heart through the functions of life, its transpirations are so ireeand
«mooth and deep as to be scarce beard even by the subject of
them. Moreover, in his conflict of duties, Hamlet naturally thinks
he is taking- the wrong one ; the calls of the claim he meets being
hushed by satisfaction, while those of the other are increased by
disappointment. The current that we go with is naturally un-
noticed by us ; but that which we go against compels our notice
by the struggle it puts us to. In this way Hamlet comes to mis-
take his clearness of conscience for moral irtsensibility. For even
so a good man is apt to think he has not consience enough, be
cause it is quiet ; a bad man, that he has too much, because it
troubles him ; which accounts for the readiness of bad men to sup-
ply their neighbours with conscience.

But perhaps the greatest perplexity of all in Hamlet's charac-
ter turns on the point of his " antic disposition." Whether his
madness be real or feigned, or sometimes the one, sometimes the
other, or partly real, partly feigned, are questions which, like many
that arise on similar points in actual life, perhaps can never be
finally settled either way. Aside from the common impossibility
of deciding precisely where sanity ends and insanity begins, there
are peculiarities in Hamlet's conduct, — resulting from the min-
glings of the supernatural in his situation, — which, as they tran-
scend the reach of our ordinary experience, can hardly be reduced
to any thing more than probable conjecture. If sanity consists in
a certain harmony between a man's actions and his circumstances,
it must be hard indeed to say what would be insanity in a man so
circumstanced as Hamlet.

That his mind is thrown from its propriety, shaken from its duo
forms and measures of working, excited into irregular, fevered ac-
tion, is evident enough : from the deeply-agitating experiences he
has undergone, the horrors of guilt preternaturally laid open to
him, and the terrible ministry enjoined upon him, he could not be
otherwise. His mind is indeed full of unhealthy perturbation,
being necessarily made so by the overwhelming thoughts that press
upon him from without ; but it nowhere appears enthralled by il-
lusions spun from itself; there are no symptoms of its being torn
from its proper holdings, or paralyzed in its power of steady
thought and coherent reasoning. Once only, at the grave of
Ophelia, does be lose his self-possession ; and the result in this
case only goes to prove how firmly he retains it everywhere else.

It is matter of common observation, that extreme emotions nat-
nially express themselves by their opposites ; as extreme sorrow,
in laughter, extreme joy, in tears ; utter despair, in a voice of
mirth ; a wounded spirit, in gushes of humour. Hence Shake*
Bpeare heightens the effect of some of his awfulest scenes by mak-
ing the persons indulge in flashes of merriment ; for what so ?.p
palling as to ,;ee a persvu laughing and playing from excess 9]

180 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

anguish or terror 7 Now, the expressions of mirth, in such cased
are plainly neither the reality nor the affectation of Tiirth. Pet>-
pie, when overwhelmed with distress, certainly are not in a con-
dilion either to feel merry or to feign mirth ; yet they do some-
times express it. The truth is, such extremes naturally and spon-
taneously express themselves by their opposites. In like maoner,
Hamlet's madness, it seems to us, is neither real nor affected, but
a sort of natural and spontaneous imitation of madness ; the tri-
umph of his reason over his passion naturally expressing- itself in
the tokens of insanity, just as the agonies of despair naturally
vent themselves in flashes of mirth. Accordingly, Coleridge re-
marks, that " Hamlet's wildness is but half false ; he plays that
subtle trick of pretending to act, only when he is very near really
being what he acts."

Again : It is not uncommon for men, in times of great depres-
sion, to fly off into prodigious humours and eccentricities. We
have known people under such extreme pressure to throw theii
most intimate friends into consternation by their extravagant play
ings and frolickings. Such symptoms of wildness are sometimes
the natural, though perhaps spasmodic, reaction of the mind
against the weight that oppresses it. The mind thus spontaneous-
ly becomes eccentric in order to recover or preserve its centre
Even so Hamlet's aberrations seem the conscious, half-voluntary
bend.ng of bis faculties beneath an overload of thought, to keep
them from breaking. His mind being deeply disturbed, agitated
to its centre, but not disorganized, those irregularities are rather a
throwing-off of that disturbance than a giving-way to it.

Ou the whole, therefore, Goethe's celebrated criticism seemi
quite beside the mark : nevertheless, as it is the calm judgment
of a great mind, besides being almost too beautiful in itself not
to be true, we gladly subjoin it. " It is clear to me," says be,
" that Shakespeare's intention was, to exhibit the effects of a great
action imposed as a duty upon a mind too feeble for its accom-
plishment. In this sense I find the character consistent through
out. Here is an oak planted in a china vase, proper to receive
only the most delicate flowers : the roots strike out, and the ves-
sel flies to pieces. A pure, noble, highly moral disposition, but
without that energy of soul which constitutes the hero, sinks under
a load which it can neither support nor resolve 10 abandon alto-
gether. All his obligations are sacred to him ; but this alone is
above his powers. An impossibility is required at bis hands; not
an impossibility in itself, but that which is so to him."

Still we have to confess, as stated before, that there is a mys-
tery about Hamlet, which baffles all our resources of criticism ;
and our remarks should be taken as expressing rather what we
have thought on the subject than any settled judgment. We will
dismiss the theme by quoting what seems to us a very admirable
passage from a paper in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. ii., signed

INTRODUCTION. 187

'T. C." The writer is speaking of Hamlet: " In him, bis char
Brier, and his situation, there is a concentration of all the interests
that belong1 to humanity. There is scarcely a trait of frailty or
of grandeur, which may have endeared to us our most beloved
friends in real life, that is not found in Hamlet. Undoubtedly
Shakespeare loved him beyond all his other creations. Soon as
he appears on the stage, we are satisfied : when absent, we long
for his return. This is the only play which exists almost alto-
gether in the character of one single person. Who ever knew a
Hamlet in real life ? yet who, ideal as the character is, feels not
its reality ? This is the wonder. We love him not, we think of
him not, because he was witty, because he was melancholy, be-
cause he was filial ; but we love him because he existed, and was
himself. This is the grand sum-total of the impression. I be-
Jieve that of every other character, either in tragic or epic poetry,
the story makes a part of the conception ; but, of Hamlet, the
deep and permanent interest is the conception of himself. This
seems to belong, not to the character being more perfectly drawn,
but to there being a more intense conception of individual human
life than perhaps in any other human composition ; that is, a being
with springs of thought, and feeling, and action, deeper thau we
can search. These springs rise up from an unknown depth, and
in that depth there seems to be a oneness of being which we can-
not distinctly behold, but which we believe to be there; and thus
irreconcileable circumstances, floating on the surface of his actions,
have not the effect of making us doubt the truth of the general
picture."

From the same eloquent paper we must make another extraei
touching the apparition of " that fair and warlike form, in which
the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes march : " " With
all the mighty pt>wer which this tragedy possesses over us, arising
from qualities now very generally described ; yet, without that
kingly shadow, who throws over it such preternatural grandeur, it
could never have gained so universal an ascendancy over the
minds of men. Now, the reality of a ghost is measured to that
state of imagination in which we ought to be held for the fullest
powers of tragedy. The appearance of such a phantom at once
throws open those recesses of the inner spirit over which flesh was
closing. Magicians, thunder-storms, and demons produce upon
me something of the same effect. I feel myself brought instan-
taneously back to the creed of childhood. Imagination then seems
not a power which J exert, but an impulse which I obey. Thus
does the Ghost in Hamlet carry us into the presence of eternity.

" Never was a more majestic spirit more majestically revealed.
The shadow of his kingly grandeur and his warlike might rests
massily upon him. He passes before us sad, silent, and stately.
He brings the whole weight of the tragedy in big disclosures. His
speech is ghost -like, and blends with ghost conceptions. Fba

188 HAMLET, FRINGE OF DENMARK.

popular memory of his words proves how profoundly they sink inlc
our souls. The preparation for his first appearance is most sol-
emn. The night-watch, — the more common effect on the two
soldiers, — the deeper effect on the next party, and their specula
tions, — Horatio's communication with the shadow, that seems as it
were half-way between theirs and Hamlet's, — his adjurations, —
the degree of impression which they produce on the Ghost's mind,
who is about to speak but for Ihe due ghost-like interruption of the
bird of morning'; — all these things lead our minds up to the last
ftitch of breathless expectation ; and while yet the whole weight
of mystery is left hanging over the play, we feel that some dread
disclosure is reserved for Hamlet's ear, and that an apparition
from the world unknown is still a partaker of the noblest of all
earthly affections."

Horatio is a very noble character ; but he moves so quietly in
the drama, that his modest worth and solid manliness have not had
justice done them. Should we undertake to go through the play
without him, we should then feel how much of the best spirit and
impression of the scenes is owing to his presence and character,
For he is the medium through which many of the hero's finest and
noblest traits are conveyed to us ; yet himself so clear and trans-
parent that he scarcely catches the attention. Mr. Verplanck, wo
believe, was the first to give him his due. " While," says he,
'• every other character in this play, Ophelia, Polonius, and even
Osrick, has been analyzed and discussed, it is remarkable that no
critic has slept forward to notice the great beauty of Horatio's
character, and its exquisite adaptation to the effect of the piece
His is a character of great excellence and accomplishment ; but
while this is distinctly shown, it is but sketched, not elaborately
painted. His qualities are brought out only by single and seem-
ingly-accidental touches ; the whole being toned down to a quiet
and unobtrusive beauty that does not tempt the mind to wander
from the main interest, which rests alone upon Hamlet ; while it
is yet distinct enough to increase that interest, by showing him
worthy to be Hamlet's trusted friend in life, and the chosen de-
fender of his honour after death. Such a character, in the hands
of another author, would have been made the centre of some sec-
ondary plot. But here, while he commands our respect and es-
teem, be never for a moment divides a passing interest with the
Prince. He does not break in upon the main current of our feel-
ings. He contributes only to the general effect ; so that it re-
quires an effort of the mind, to separate him for critical admira-
tion.'1

The main features of Polonius have been seized and set forth
by Dr. Johnson with the hand of a master. It is one of the besl
pieces of personal criticism ever penned. " Polonius," says be,
" is a man bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with obser-
ration, confident in bis knowledge, proud of his eloquence, au ]

INTRODUCTION. 189

declining1 into dotage. His mode of oratory is designed to rid
icule the practice of these times, of prefaces that made no intro
duction, and of method that embarrassed rather than explained
This part of his character is accidental, the rest natural. Such a
man is positive and confident, because he knows that his mind was
once strong, and knows no' that it has become weak. Such a man
excel? in general principles, but fails in particular application. He
is knowing in retrospect, and ignorant in foresight. While he de-
pends upon his memory, and can draw from his depositaries of
knowledge, he utters weighty sentences, and gives useful counsel ;
but, as the mind in its enfeebled state cannot be kept long busy
and intent, the old man is subject to the dereliction of his facul-
ties ; he loses the order of his ideas, and entangles himself in his
own thoughts, till he recover the leading principle, and fall into
his former train. The idea of dotage encroaching upon wisdom
will solve all the phenomena of the character of Polonius."

In all this Polonius is the exact antithesis of Hamlet, though
Hamlet doubtless includes him, as the heavens do the earth. A
man of but one method, that of intrigue ; with his fingers ever
itching to pull the wires of some intricate plot ; and without any
sense or perception of times and occasions; he is called to act in
ft matter where such arts and methods are peculiarly unfitting, and
therefore only succeeds in over-reaching himself. Thus in him we
have the type of a superannuated politician, and all his follies and
blunders spring from undertaking to act the politician where he is
most especially required to be a man. From books, too, he has
gleaned maxims, but not gained development ; sought to equip,
not feed, his mind out of them : he has therefore made books his
idols, and books have made him pedantic.

To such a mind, or rather half-mind, the character of Hamlet
must needs be a profound enigma. It takes a whole man to know
such a being as Hamlet ; and Polonius is but the attic story of a
man ! As in his mind the calculative faculties have eaten out the
perceptive, of course his inferences are seldom wrong, his prem-
ises seldom right. Assuming Hamlet to be thus and so, he rea-
sons and acts most admirably in regard to him ; but the fact is, he
cannot see Hamlet ; has no eye for the true premises of the case ;
and, being wrong in these, his very correctness of logic makes
him but the more ridiculous. His method of coming at the mean-
ing of men, is by reading them backwards ; and this method.
used upon such a character as Hamlet, can but betray the user's
infirmity.

Shakespeare's skill in revealing a character through its most
characteristic transpirations is finely displayed in the directions
Polonius gives his servant, for detecting the habits and practices
of his absent son. Here the old politician is perfectly at home ;
his mind seems to revel in the mysteries of wire-pulling and trap
Betting, In the Prince, however, he finds an impracticable sub

190 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

ject j here all his strategy is nonplussed, and himself caujfht in t'le
trap ne set? tc catch the truth. The mere torch of policy, nature
or Hamlet, who is an embodiment of nature, blows him out ; so
ihat, in attempting to throw light on the Prince, he just rays out
nothing but smoke. The sport of circumstances, it was only by
a change of circumstances that Hamlet came to know him. Once
the honoured minister of his royal father, now the despised tool of
that father's murderer, Hamlet sees in him only the crooked, sup-
ple time-server ; and the ease with which he baffles and plagues
the old fo.x shows how much craftier one can be who scorns craft,
than one who courts it.

Habits of intrigue having extinguished in Polonius the powers
of honest insight and special discernment, he therefore perceives
not the unfitness of his old methods to the new exigency ; while at
the same time his faith in the craft, hitherto found so successful,
stuffs him with overweening assurance. Hence, also, that singular
but most characteristic specimen of grannyism, namely, his pe-
dantic and impertinent dallying with artful turns of thought and
speech amidst serious business ; where he appears not unlike a
certain person who " could speak no sense in several languages."
Superannuated politicians, indeed, like him, seldom have any
strength but as they fall back upon the resources of memory : out
of these, the ashes, so to speak, of exiinct faculties, they may seem
wise after the fountains of wisdom are dried up within them ; as
a man who has lost his sight may seem to distinguish colours, so
long as he refrains from speaking of the colours that are before
him.

Of all Shakespeare's heroines, the impression of Ophelia is
perhaps the most difficult of analysis, partly because she is so real,
partly because so undeveloped. Like Cordelia, she is brought
forward but little in the play, yet the whole play seems full of her.
Her very silence utters her: unseen, she is missed, and so thought
of the more: when absent in person, she is still present in effect,
by what others bring from her. Whatsoever grace comes firm
Polonius and the Queen is of her inspiring : Laertes is scarce re
garded but as he loves bis sister : of Hamlet's soul, too, she is the
sunrise and morning hymn. The soul of innocence aud gentle-
ness, wisdom seems to radiate from her insensibly, as fragrance is
ex'ieied from flowers. It is in such forms that heaven most fre-
quently visits us !

Ophelia's situation much resembles Imogen's ; their characters
are in marked contrast. Both appear amid the corruptions of a
wicked court ; Ophelia escapes them by insensibility of their pres-
ence, Imogen, by determined resistance : The former is unassail-
able in herjnnocence ; the latter, unconquerable in her strength:
Ignorance protects Ophelia, knowledge, Imogen : The conception
of vice has scarce found its way into Ophelia's mind ; in Imogen
the iail} perception of vice has but called for a power to rei<e it,

INTRODUCTION. 19]

In Ophelia, again, as in Desclemona, the comparative want of in-
telligence, or rather intellectuality, is never felt as a defect. She
fills up the idea of excellence just as completely as if she had the
intellect of Shakespeare himself. In the rounded equipoise of hoi
character we miss not the absent element, because there is no va-
cancy to be supplied ; and high intellect would strike us rather as
a superfluity than a supplement ; its voice would rather drown than
complete the harmony of the other tones.

Ophelia is exhibited in the utmost ripeness and mellowness, both
of soul and sense, to impressions from without. With her sus-
ceptibilities just opening to external objects, her thoughts are so
engaged on these as to leave no room for self-contemplation.
This exceeding impressibility is the source at once of her beauty
and her danger. From the lips and eyes of Hamlet she ha<s drunk
in pledges of his love, but has never heard the voice of her own ;
and knows not how full her heart is of Hamlet, because she has
not a single thought or feeling there at strife with him. Mrs. Jame-
son rightly says, " she is far more conscious of being loved than
of loving ; and yet loving in the silent depths of her young heart
far more than she is loved.'' For it is a singular fact that, though
from Hamlet we have many disclosures, and from Ophelia only
concealments, there has been much doubt of his love, but never
any of hers. Ophelia's silence as to her own passion has beeu
sometimes misderived from a wish to hide it from others ; but, in
truth, she seems not to be aware of it herself; and she uncon-
sciously betrays it in the modest reluctance with which she yields
up the secret of Hamlet's courtship. The extorted confession of
what she has received reveals how much she has given ; the soft
tremblings of her bosom being made the plainer by the delicate
lawn of silence thrown over it. Even when despair is wringing
her innocent young soul into an utter wreck, she seems not to
know the source of her affliction ; and the truth comes out only
when her sweet mind, which once breathed such enchanting music,
lies broken in fragments before us, and the secrets of her maider.
hear', are hovering on her demented tongue.

One of the bitterest ingredients in poor Ophelia's cup is the
belief that by her repulse of Hamlet she has dismantled his fail
and stately house of reason ; and when, forgetting the wounds with
wbicn iver own pure spirit is bleeding, over the spectacle of that
u unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth blasted with ecstacy,"
she meets his, " I loved you not," with the despairing sigh, " I
was the more deceived," we see that she feels not the sundering
of the ties that bind her sweetly-tempered faculties in harmony.
Yet we blame not Hamlet, for he is himself but a victim of an in-
exorable power which is spreading its ravages through him over
another life as pure and heavenly as his own. Standing on thg
verge of an abyss which is yawning to engulph himself, his very
effort to frighten he- Sack from it only hurries her in before him

192 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

To snatch another jewel from Mrs. Jameson's casket. — "He has
no thought to link his terrible destiny with hers: he cannot marry
her : he cannot reveal to her, young, gentle, innocent as she is, the
terrific influences which have changed the whole current of his life
and purposes. In his distraction he overacts the painful part to
which he has tasked himself; like that judge of the Areopagus
who, being occupied with graver matters, flung from him tre little
l>ird which had sought refuge in his bosom, and with such angry
violence, that he unwittingly killed it."

Ophelia's insanity exhausts the fountains of human pity. It is
one of those mysterious visitings over which we can only brood in
siient sympathy and awe ; which Heaven alone has a heart ad-
equately to pity, and a hand effectually to heal. Its pathos were
too much to be borne, but for the sweet incense that rises from her
crushed spirit, as " she turns thought and affliction, passion, hell
itself, to favour and to prettiness." Of her death what shall be
said 7 The victim of crimes in which she has no share but as a
sufferer, we hail with joy the event that snatches her from the rack
of this world. The " snatches of old lauds," with which she
chaunts, as it were, her own burial service, are like smiles gush
ing from the very heart of woe. We must leave her, with the
words of Hazlitt : " O, rose of May ! O, flower too soon faded !
Her love, her madness, her death, are described with the truest
•ouches of tenderness aud pathos. It is a character which nobody
nut Shakespeare could have drawn in the way that he has done ;
and to the conception of which there is not the smallest approach,
except in some of the old romantic ballads."

The Queen's affection for this lovely being is one of those un-
expected strokes, so frequent in Shakespeare, which surprise us
into reflection by their naturalness. That Ophelia should disclose
a vein of goodness in the Queen, was necessary perhaps to keep
us both from underrating the influence of the one, and from ex-
aggerating the wickedness of the other. The love which she thus
awakens tells us that her helplessness springs from innocence, not
from weakness ; and so serves to prevent the pity which her con<
dition moves from lessening the respect due to her character.

Almost any other author would have depicted Gertrude without
a single alleviating trait in her character. Beaumont aud Fletcher
would probably have made her simply frightful or loathsome, and
capable only of exciting abhorrence or disgust; if, indeed, in her
monstrous depravity she had not rather failed to excite any feel-
lug. Shakespeare, with far more effect as well as far more truth
exhibits her will? such a mixture of good and bad, as neither dis-
arms censure uor precludes pity. Herself dragged along in the
terrible train of consequences which her own guilt had a hand in
starting, she is hurried away into the same dreadful abyss along
wilt those whom she loves, and against whom she has sinned. In
her tenderness towards Hamlet and Ophelia, we recognise the vir-

INTRODUCTION. 193

lues of the mother without in the least palliating the guilt of the
wife ; while the crimes in which she is an accomplice almost di».
appear in those of which she is the victim.

The plan of this drama seems to consist in the persons being
represented as without plans ; for, as Goethe happily remarks,
"the hero is without any plan, but the play itself is full of plan.'
As the action, so far as there is any, is shaped and determined
rather for the characters than from them, all their energies could
the better be translated into thought. Hence of all the Peer's
dramas this probably combines the greatest strength and diversity
of faculties. Sweeping round the whole circle of human tnought
and passion, its alternations of amazement and terror; of lust,
ambition, and remorse ; of hope, love, friendship, anguish, mad-
ness, and despair ; of wit, humour, pathos, poetry, and philosophy ;
now congealing the blood with horror, now melting the heart with
pity, now launching the mind into eternity, now startling con-
science from her lonely seat with supernatural visitings ; — it un-
folds indeed a world of truth, and beauty, and sublimity.

Of its varied excellences, only a few of the less obvious need
be specified. The platform scenes are singularly charged with
picturesque effect. The chills of a northern winter midnight seem
creeping on us, as the heart-sick sentinels pass in view, and, steeped
in moonlight and drowsiness, exchange their meeting and parting
salutations. The thoughts and images that rise in their minds are
just such as the anticipation of preternatural visions would be likely
to inspire. As the bitter cold stupefies their senses, an indescrib-
able feeling of dread and awe steals over them, preparing the
mind to realise its own superstitious imaginings. And the feeling
one has in reading these scenes is not unlike that of a child pass
ing a grave-yard by moonlight. Out of the dim and drowsy
moonbeams apprehension creates its own objects ; his fancies em-
body themselves in surrounding facts ; his fears give shape to out-
ward things, while those things give outwardness to his fears. —
The heterogeneous elements that are brought together in the grave-
diflrging scene, with its strange mixture of songs and witticisms and
dead men's bones, and its still stranger transitions of the grave,
the sprightly, the meditative, the solemn, the playful, and the gro-
tesque, make it one of the most wonderful yet most natural scenes
in the drama. — In view of the terrible catastrophe, Goethe has
the following weighty sentence: "It is the tendency of crime to
spread its evils over innocence, as it is of virtue to diffuse its
blessings over many who deserve them not ; while, frequently, the
author of the one or of the other is not, so far as we can see, pun-
ished or rewarded."

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark.

HAMLET, his Nephew, Son of the former King.

POLONIUS, Lord Chamberlain.

HORATIO, Friend to Hamlet.

LAERTES, Son of Polonius.

VOLTIMAND, 1

CORNELIUS, !Courtieri<

R.OSENCRANT7,, J
GUILDENSTERN, J

OSRICK, a Courtier.
Another Courtier.
A Priest.

MARCELLDS, ") „,,.

' > Officers.
BERNARDO, J

FRANCISCO, a Soldier.
REYNALDO, Servant to Polonius.
A Captain. Ambassadors.
The Ghost of Hamlet's Father.
FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway.
Two Grave-diggers.

GERTRUDE, Mother of Hamlet, and Queen.
OPHELIA, Daughter of Polonius.

Lordi, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Sailors, Mesaec
gers, and Attendants.

SCENE, Elsiuore.

THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET

ACT I.

SCENE I. Elsinore.

A Platform before the Castle.

FRANCISCO on his Post. Enter to him BERNARDO.

Ber. WHO'S there 1

Fran, Nay, answer me : * stand, and unfold your-
self.

Ber. Long live the king !
Fran. Bernardo ?
Ber. He.

1 That is, answer me, as I have the right to challenge you.
Bernardo then gives in answer the watch-word, " Long live the
king!" — "Compare," says Coleridge, "the easy language of
common life, in which this drama commences, with the direful mu
sic and wild wayward rhythm and abrupt lyrics of the opening of
Macbeth. The tone is quite familiar : there is no poetic descrip-
tion of night, no elaborate information conveyed by one speaker
to another of what both had immediately before their senses ; and
yet nothing bordering on the comic on the one hand, nor auy
striving of the intellect on the other. It is precisely the language
of sensation among men who feared no charge of effeminacy for
feeling what they had no want of resolution to bear. Yet tlie ar-
mour, the dead silence, the watchfulness that first interrupts it, the
welcome relief of the guard, the cold, the broken expressions of
compelled attention to bodily feelings still under control,. — all ex-
cellently accord with, and prepare for, the after gradual rise into
tragedy; but, above all, into a tragedy, the interest of which is as
eminently ad et apud intra, as that of Macbeth is directly ad
extra." H.

196 HAMLET, ACT I

/Van. You come most carefully upon your hour.

Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve : get thee to bed,
Francisco.

Fran. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.

Ber. Have you had quiet guard ?

Fran. Not a mouse stirring

Ber. Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch,2 bid them make haste.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

Fran. I think I hear them. — Stand, ho ! Who la
there ?

Hor. Friends to this ground.

Mar. And liegemen to the Dane.

Fran. Give you good night.

Mar. O, farewell, honest soldier !

Who hath reliev'd you ?

Fran. Bernardo has my place

Give you good night.* [Exit.

Mar. Holla! Bernardo!

Ber. Say.

What ! is Horatio there 1

Hor. A piece of him.

Ber. Welcome, Horatio : welcome, good Mar-
cellus.

* Rirals are associates or partners. A brook, rivulet, or river,
rivus, being a natural boundary between different proprietors, was
owned by them in common ; that is, they were partners in the
right and use of it. From the strifes thus engendered, the part-
ners came to be contenders : hence the ordinary sense of rival.
See Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii. sc. 5, note 1. H.

* This salutation is an abbreviated form of, " May God give
you a good n.ght ; " which has been still further abbreviated io
the phrase, " Good night." H.

UC. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 197

Hor What ! has this thing appear'd again to-
night ? 4

Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of US'
Therefore, I have intreated hirn along
With us to watch the minutes of this night ;
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes,5 and speak to it.

4 The folio assigns this speech to Marcellus. The quartos are
probably right, as Horatio comes on purpose to try his own eyes

OD the Ghost We quole from Coleridge again: "Bernardo'*

inquiry after Horatio, and the repetition of his name in his own
presence indicate i respect or an eagerness that implies him as
one of the persons who are in the foreground ; and the scepticism
attributed to him prepares us for Hamlot's after eulogy on him as
one whose blood and judgment were happily commingled. Now,
observe the admirable indefiniteness of the first opening out of the
occasion of all this anxiety. The preparative information of the
audience is just as much as was precisely necessary, and no more ;

— it begins with the uncertain!}' appertaining to a question:
'What! has this thing appear'd again to-night ?' Even the word
again has its credibilizing effect. Then Horatio, the representa-
tive of the ignorance of the audience, not himself, but by Marcel-
lus to Bernardo, anticipates the common solution, — ' 'Tis but our
fantasy ; ' upon which Marcellus rises into, — < This dreaded sight
twice seen of us;' which immediately afterwards becomes ' this
apparition,' and that, too, an intelligent spirit that is to be spoken
to ! " H.

6 That is, make good our vision, or prove our eyes to be true
Approve was often thus used in the sense of confirm. — Coleridge
continues his comments on the scene thus : " Then comes the con
fin-nation of Horatio's disbelief. — 'Tush, tush! 'twill not appear;'

— and the silence with which the scene opened is again restored
ID the shivering feeling of Horatio sitting down, at such a time,
and with the two eye-witnesses, to hear a story of a ghost, ai;d
that, too, of a ghost which had appeared twice before at the very
same hour. In the deep feeling which Bernardo has of the solemn
nature of what he is about to relate, he makes an effort to master
hi* own imaginative terrors by an elevation of style, — itself a
continuation of the effort. — and by turning off from the apparition
as from sornettvng which would force him too deeply idlo himself

198 HAMLET, ACT J

Hor Tush, tush ! 'twill not appear.

Ber. Sit down awhile ;

And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

Hor. Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Ber. Last night of all,
When yond' same star, that's westward from the

pole,

Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one,8 —

Mar. Peace ! break thee off: look, where it comes

again

Enter the Ghost.

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
Mar. Thou art a scholar ; speak to it, Horatio.7

to the outward objects, the realities of nature, which had accom
panied it." H.

* This passage seetns to contradict the critical law, that what
is told makes a faint impression compared with what is beholden ;
for it does indeed convey to the mind more than the eye can see ;
whilst the interruption of the narrative at the very moment when
we are most intensely listening for the sequel, and have our thoughts
diverted from the dreaded sight in expectation of the desired, yet
almost dreaded, tale, — this gives all the suddenness and surprise
of the original appearance : "Peace! break thee off: look, where
it comes again ! " Note the judgment displayed in having the two
persons present, who, as having seen the Ghost before, are natu-
rally eager in confirming their former opinions ; whilst the sceptic
is silent, and, after having been twice addressed by his friends,
answers with two hasty syllables, — "Most like," — and a confes-
sion of horror : " It harrows me with fear and wonder." — COLE-
RIDGE. H.

7 It was believed that a supernatural being could only be spoken
to with effect by persons of learning ; exorcisms being usually prac-
Used by the clergy in Latin. So in The Night Walker of JJeau
moiit and Fletcher :

9C. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 199

Bcr. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

Hor. Most like: — it harrows me with fear8 and
wonder.

Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar. Question it, Horatio,

Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of

night,

Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march] by Heaven I charge thee,
speak !

Mar. It is offended.

Ber. See ! it stalks away.

Hor. Stay ! speak, speak ! I charge thee, speak !

[Exit Ghost.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Ber. How now, Horatio ! you tremble and look

pale.

Is not this something more than fantasy 1
What think you on't ?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe,
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the king ?

Hor. As thou art to thyself.
Such was the very armour he had on,
When he th' ambitious Norway combated :
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

•' Let's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin,
And that will daunt the devil."

* The first quarto reads, "it horrors me." To harrow is to
distress, to vex. to disturb. To harry and to harass have the
game origin. Milton has the word in Comus : " Amaz'd I stood,
harroto'd with f,rrief and fear." — " Question it," in the next line,
to the reading of the folio ; other old copies have " Speak to it."

ii

200 HAMLET, ACT I.

He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.*
'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump10 at this dead

hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know

not ;

But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Mar. Good now ; sit down, and tell me, he that

knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land 1
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war 1
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week 1
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day ?
Who is't, that can inform me 1

Hor. That can I ;

At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by u most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat ; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbras ; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,

• Polacfcs was used for Polanders in Shakespeare's time.
Sledded is sledged ; on a sled or sleigh. — Parle, in the preceding
line, is the same as parley. H.

10 So all the quartos. The folio reads just. Jump and just
were synonymous in the time of Shakespeare. So in Chapman'l
May Day, 161 " Your appointment was jnmpe at three witk
me."

*C. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 201

Did forfeit with his life all those his lands,

Which he stood sei/.'d of,11 to the conqueror:

Against the which, a moiety competent

Was gaged by our king ; which had return 'd

To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher ; as, by the same co-mart.

And carriage of the article design 'd,12

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbraa,

Of unimproved mettle hot arid full,13

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,

Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,

For food and diet, to some enterprise

That hath a stomach in't : u which is no other

(As it doth well appear unto our state)

But to recover of us, by strong hand

And terms cornpulsative,16 those 'foresaid lands

So by his father lost. And this, I take it,

Is the main motive of our preparations,

1 This is the old legal phrase, still in use, for held possession
of, or was the rightful owner of. H.

18 Co-mart is the reading of the quartos ; the folio reads, rov'-
nant. Co-mart, it is presumed, means a joint bargain. No other
instance of the word is known. Designed is here used in the sense
of the Latin designatus ; carriage in the sense of import : that is,
the import of the article marked out for that purpose.

13 That is, of unimpeached or unquestioned courage. To im-
prove anciently signified to impeach, to impugn. Thus Florio :
" Improbare, to improove, to impugn." The French have still im-
proure.r, with the same meaning ; from improbare, Lai. Numer-
ous instances of improve in this sense may be found in the writings
of Shakespeare's time. — Sharfc'd is snapped up or taken up hasti-
ly. " Scroccare is properly to do any thing at another man's cost,
to shark or shift for any thing. Scroccolone, a cunning shifter or
sharlcer for any thing in time of need, namely for victuals ; a tali
trencher-man, shifting up and down for belly cheer." The quar
tos have lawless instead of landless, of the folio. Lawless maybe
right.

14 Stomach is used for determined purpose.

16 So the folio; the quartos, compuLsatory , which carries the
Name meaning, but overfills the measure. a

202 HAMLET, ACT L

The source of this our watch, and the chief head
Of tliis post-haste and romage in the land.18

Ber. I think it be no other but e'en so :
Well may it sort,17 that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch ; so like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.

Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye.
lu the most high and palmy18 state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets :
As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun ; and the moist star,19
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events —
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen *° coming on —
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen. —

18 Romage, now spelt rummage, is used For ransacking, or mak
ing a thorough search. — What follows, after this line down to the
re-entrance of the Ghost, is wanting- in the folio of 1623 and in the
quarto of 1603. H.

17 That is, Jit, suit, or agree: often so used.

18 That is, victorious ; the Palm being the emblem of victory.

19 There is evidently some corruption here, but it has hitherto
oaffled remedy,' and seems to be given up as hopeless. Both the
general structure of the sentence and the exigencies of the sense
clearly favour the belief that a* stars is a misprint for some word
of two syllables, and disasters for some verb. For the first, Ma-
Jone would read astrts ; to which Steevens objects that there is no
authority for such a word. The passage in North's translation of
Plutarch, Life of Julius Caesar, which the Poet probably had ia
his eye, yields no certain help. See, however, Julius Caesar, Act
i. sc. 3. note 2, and Act ii. sc. 2, note 2. — "The moist star" ii
ihe moon. So in Marlowe's Hero and Leauder : " Not that nigbt-
ivaiui'ring pale and watery star." H.

211 Omen :3 here put for portentous event. The use of the word
is classical. H

SO. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 203

Re-enter the Ghost.

But, soft ! behold ! lo, where it comes again !
I'll cross it, though it blast me.21 — Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me :

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me :

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing, may avoid,
O, speak !

Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,

[Cock crows,

Speak of it : — stay, and speak ! — Stop it, Mar
cellus.

Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan 7

Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

Ber. 'Tis here !

Hor. 'Tis here !

Mar. 'Tis gone. [Exit Ghost.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence ;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.

11 It was believed that a person crossing the path of a spectre
became subject to its malignant influence. Lodge's Illustrations
of English History, speaking of Ferdinand, Earl of Derby, who
died by witchcraft, as was supposed, in 1594, has the following I
''On Friday th^re appeared a tall man, who twice crossed him
swiftly ; and when the earl came to the place where he saw this
man, he fell sick." — Johnson remarks that this speech of Horatio
is very elegant and noble, and congruous to the common traditions
touching apparitions. H

204 HAMLET, ACT 1

Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew
Hor. And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,1*
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day ; and at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine : 23 and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.*4
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long :
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad ; **
The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes,28 nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

** So the quartos ; the folio has day instead of morn. Drayton
gives the cock the same office i

" And now the cockf, the morning's trumpeter,
Play'd hunts-up for the day-star to appear." e.

M Extravagant is extra-vagans , wandering about, going be-
yond bounds. Erring is erraticus, straying or roving up and
down. Mr. Douce has justly observed that " the epithets extrav-
agant and erring are highly poetical and appropriate, and seem
to prove that Shakespeare was not altogether ignorant of the Latin
language."

** This is a very ancient superstition. Philostratus, giving an
account of the apparition of Achilles' shade to Apollnnius of Ty
anna, says, " it vanished with a little gleam as soon as the cock
crowed." There is a Hymn of Prudentius, and another of St.
Ambrose, in which it is mentioned ; and there are some lines in
the latter very much resembling Horatio's speech.

** So read all the quartos but the first ; the folio has, " no spirit
can walk abroad." It is difficult which to prefer, both readings
being so good. H.

** That is, no fairy blasts, or infects. See The Merry Wives
of Windsor, Act iv. sc. 4, note 2. — Gracious is sometimes used

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 205

Jfor. So have I heard, and do in part helieve it
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yond' high eastern hill.
Break we our watch up ; and, by my advice,
Let us impart what we h*»ve seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet ; for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to hftn.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty ? "

Mar. Let's do't, I pray ; and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently. [Exeunt

SCENE II.

The Same. A Room of State.

Enter the King, the Queen, HAMLET, POLONIUS,
LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and
Attendants.

King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's

death

The memory be green ; and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe ;
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore, our sometime sister, now our queen,

by Shakespeare for graced, favoured. See As You Like It, Ac
i, se. 2, note 11. — The quartos have "that time," and further 03,
eastward for eastern.

87 Note the inobtrusive and yet fully adequate mode of intro-
ducing the main character, ''young Hamlet," upon whom is trans
terred all the interest excited for the acts and concerns of the king
his father. — COLERIDGE. H

206 HAMLET, ACT I

TV imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy, —
With one auspicious, and one dropping eye ; '
With mirth in funeral, and witli dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole, —
Taken to wife : nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along : For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking, by our late clear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. — So much for him.
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is : We have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras, —
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose, — to suppress
His further gait herein ; 2 in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject. And we here despatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway ;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope

4 The same thought occurs in The Winter's Tale : " She had
one eye declin'd for the loss of her husband, another elevated that
the oracle was fulfill'd." There is an old proverbial phrase, " Tc
laugh with one eye. and cry with the other."

2 Gait here signifies course, progress, (rait for road, way
path, is still in use. — Suhject, next line but one, is used for sub
jects, or those subject to him. H.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 207

Of these dilated articles allow.8

Farewell ; and let your haste commend your duty.

Cor. Vol. In that, and all things, will we show
our duty.

King. We doubt it nothing : heartily farewell. —
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you ?
You told us of some suit : what is't, Laertes ?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice': What would'st thou beg,

Laertes,

That shall not he my offer, not thy asking ?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.4
What would'st thou have, Laertes 1

Laer. My dread lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France ;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation ;
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

King. Have you your father's leave ? What says
Polonius ?

3 That is, the scope of these articles when dilated or explained
in full. Such elliptical expressions are common with the Poet,
from his having more thought than space. The rules of modern
grammar would require allows instead of allow ; but in old writers,
when the noun and the verb have a genitive intervening, nothing
is more common than for the verb to take the number of the gen-
itive.— " In the king's speech," says Coleridge, "observe the set
and pedantically antithetic form of the sentences when touching
mat which galled the heels of conscience, — the strain of undig-
nified rhetoric ; and yet in what follows concerning the public weal,
a certain appropriate majesty." H.

4 The various parts of the body enumerated are not more allied,
more necessary to each other, than the king of Denmark is bound
lo your father to do him service

k208 HAMLET, ACT L

Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow

leave,

By laboursome petition ; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent :
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.6

King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will.6 —
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son, —

Ham. [Aside.] A little more than kin, and less
than kind.7

King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you ?

Ham. Not so, my lord; I am too much i'the sun.8

Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids 8

* The first three lines of this speech, all but " He hath, my
lord," are wanting in the folio. H.

8 The king's speech may be thus explained : " Take an auspi-
cious hour, Laertes ; be your time your own, and thy best virtues
guide thee in spending of it at thy will." Johnson thought that
we should read, "And my best graces." The editors had rendered
this passage obscure by placing a colon at graces.

7 A little more than kin has been rightly said to allude to the
double relationship of the king to Hamlet, as uncle and step-father,
his kindred by blood and kindred by marriage. By less than kind
Hamlet means degenerate and base. " Going out of kinde," says
Baret, " which goeth out of kinde, which dothe or icorketh dishon-
our to his kinred. Degener ; forlignant." " Forligner," says
Cotgrave, " to degenerate, to grow out of kind, to differ in con
ditions with his ancestors." That less than kind and out of kind
have the same meaning who can doubt?

8 This is commonly thought to be a sarcastic play upon the
words sun and son ; as the being called son by his uncle naturally
reminds Hamlet of his mother's incest. Perhaps, however, the
true meaning is best explained by the following, from Grindal's
Profitable Discourse, 1555 : " In very deed they were brought
from the good to the bad, and from God's blessing, as the proverbs
is, into a warme somie." See King Lear. Act ii. sc. 2, note 27. —
In the next line, the folio has nightly instead of nighted. H.

• That is, with downcast eyes. We have repeatedly seen, that
to vail was to lower or let fall. See The Merchant of Venice
Act i sc. 1 note 3. u.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 209

Seek for thy noble father in the dust :

Thou know'st 'tis common ; all that live must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.10

Queen. If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee ?

Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know no(

seems.

Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of griet,
That can denote me truly : these, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play ;
But I have that within, which passeth show ;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.

King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your na-
ture, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father :
But, you must know, your father lost a father ;
That father lost, lost his ; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term,
To do obsequious sorrow.11 But to persever

10 Here observe Hamlet's delicacy to his mother, and how the
suppression prepares him for the overflow in the next speech, in
which his character is more developed by bringing1 forward his
aversion to externals, and which betrays his habit of brooding over
the world within him, coupled with a prodigality of beautiful words,
which are the half-embodyings of thought, and are more than
thought, and have an outness, a reality sui generis, and yet retain
their correspondence and shadowy affinity to the images and move-
ments within. Note, also, Hamlet's silence to the long speech of
the King, which follows, and his respectful, but general, answer to
his mother. — COLERIDGE. H.

11 The Poet sometimes uses obseauious as raving the sense of
obsequies. So iu his 31st Soiiuet :

2JU HAMLET, ACT I

In obstinate condolement, is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;

It shows a will most incorrect to Heaven ; ll

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,

An understanding simple and unschool'd :

For what, we know, must be, and is as common

As any the most vulgar thing to sense,

Why should we, in our peevish opposition,

Take it to heart ? Fie ! 'tis a fault to Heaven,

A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,

To reason most absurd ; whose common theme

Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,

From the first corse till he that died to-day,

"This must be so." We pray you, throw to earth

This unprevailing woe,13 and think of us

As of a father ; for, let the world take note,

You are the most immediate to our throne ;

And, with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his son,

Do I impart14 toward you. For your intent

In going back to school in Wittenberg,

It is most retrograde to our desire ;

And, we beseech you, bend you to remain

Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayersj

Hamlet :
I pray thee, stay with us ; go not to Wittenberg.

" How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead ! " H.

** Incorrect is here used, apparently, in the sense of incorrigi-
ble. H.

13 Unprevailing was used in the sense of unavailing as late as
Dryden's time.

14 That is, disvense, bettovo.

8C. II PRINCE OF DENMARK. 211

Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
Be as ourself in Denmark. — Madam, come ;
This gentle and nnforc'd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart ; in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the king's rouse15 the heaven shall bruit again.
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Flourish. Exeunt all but HAMLET.

Ham. O, that this too, too solid flesh would rnelt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew !16
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter ! O God ! O God !
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world !
Fie on't ! O fie ! 'tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed ; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.17, That it should come to this !
But two months dead ! — nay, not so much, not two :
So excellent a king ; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr:18 so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth !
Must I remember 7 why, she would hang on him,

15 A rouse was a deep draught to one's health, wherein it was
the custom to empty the cup or gohlct. Its meaning, and proo
ably Us origin, was the same as carouse, still in use. H

18 To resolve had anciently the same meaning as to disst ,'re.
" To thaw or resolve that which is frozen ; regelo. — The snow is.
resolved and melted. To till the ground, and resolve it into dust."
•—COOPER.

17 That is, absolutely, solely, wholly. Mere, Lat.

18 Hyperion, or Apollo, always represented as a model of beau
ty, — Bfteem is permit or suffer. The word, being uncommon
was changed tt> permitted by Rowe, and to let t en by Theobald
Bee A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act i sc. 1, uote 5

212 HAMLET, ACT L

As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on : and yet, within a month, —
Let me riot think on't ; — Frailty, thy name is wo-
man ! —

A little month ; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears ; — why, she, even she, —
O God ! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,19
Would have mourn'd longer, — married with mine

uncle,

My father's brother ; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules : within a month ;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. — O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets !
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good ;
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue ! *°

19 Discourse of reason, in old philosophical language, is rational
discourse, or discursire reason ; the faculty of pursuing a train
of thought, or of passing from thought to thought in the way of
inference or conclusion. Readers of Milton will remember the fine
lines in Paradise Lost, Book v. :

" Whence the soul

Reason receives, and reason is her being,
Discursive or intuitive : discourse
Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,
Differing but in degree, in kind the same." H

80 This tcedium rites is a common oppression on minds cast in
the Hamlet mould, and is caused by disproportionate mental ex-
ertion, which necessitates exhaustion of bodily feeling. Where
there is a just coincidence of external and internal action, pleas-
ure is always the result ; but where the former is deficient, and the
mind's appetency of the ideal is unchecked, realities will seem cold
and unmoving. In such cases, passion combines itself witli the
indefinite alone. In this mood of his mind, the relation of the ap-
pearance of his father's spirit in arms is made all at once to Ham
let : — it is — Horatio's speech, in particular — a perfect model of
the true style of dramatic narrative ; the purest poetry, and ye»

BC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 213

Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELLDS.

Hor. Hail to your lordship !

Ham. I am glad to see you well :

Horatio, — or I do forget myself.

Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant
ever.

Ham. Sir, my good friend ; I'll change that name

with you.81

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio ! —
Marcellus ?

Mar. My good lord, —

Ham. I am very glad to see you. — Good even,

sir." —
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg t

Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.

Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore ?
We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart.

Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.

in the most natural language, equally remote from the ink-horn and
the plough. — COLERIDGE. H.

21 As if he had said, — No, you are not my poor servant : we
are friends ; that is the style I will exchange with you. Kemble
gave the true sense by laying the emphasis thus : " Sir, my good
friend ; I'll change that name with you." H.

M The words, Good even, sir, are evidently addressed to Ber
nardo, whom Hamlet has not before known ; but as he now meet*
him in company with old acquaintances, like a true gentleman, as
he is, he gives him a salutation of kindness. Some editors have
changed even to morning, because Marcellus has said before of
Hamlet, — "1 this morning know where we shall find him." It
needs but be remembered that good even was the common saluta-
tion after noon. — " What make you ? " in the preceding speech
is the old language for, " What do you ? " H.

214 HAMLET, ACT 1

Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow student 5
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

Hor. Indeed, my lord, it folio w'd hard upon.

Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio ! the funeral bak'd

meats23

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven,*4
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio ! —
My father, — methinks, I see my father.

Hor. O ! where, my lord 1

Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatia

Hor. I saw him once ; he was a goodly king.

Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,**
I shall not look upon his like again.

Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight

Ham. Saw who 7 28

Hor. My lord, the king your father.

Ham. The king my father ?

Hor. Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear, till I may deliver,
TJpon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

88 Scott, in The Bride of Lammermoor, has made the readers
of romance familiar with the old custom of" funeral bak'd meats,"
which was kept up in Scotland till a recent period. H.

** Caldecott has shown that in Shakespeare's time dearest was
applied to any person or thing that excites the liveliest interest
whether of love or hate. See Twelfth Night, Act v. sc. 1, note 3

H.

K Some would read this as if it were pointed thus : " He was
• man : take him for all in all," &.c.; laying marked stress on man,
as if it were meant to intimate a correction of Horatio's " goodly
Icing." There is, we suspect, no likelihood that the Poet had any
such thought, as there is no reason why he should have had.

H.

** In colloquial language, it was common, as indeed it still is,
thus to use the nominative where strict grammar would require the
objective. Modern editions embellish the two words with variou*
pointing; as thus : "Saw! who?" or thus : <iSaw? who?"

SC. II. PRLNCE OF DENMARK. 215

Ham. For God's love, let me hear.

Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead vast and middle of the night,27
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father
Arm'd at all points, exactly, cap-a-pe,48
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them : thrice he walk'd
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon's length ; whilst they, distill'd
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,88
Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did ;
And I with them the third night kept the watch;
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes : I knew your father ;
These hands are not more like.

Ham. But where was this ?

Hor. My lord, upon the platform where we
watch'd.

Ham. Did you not speak to it ?

Hor. My lord, I did ;

17 So the quarto of 1603 ; the other old copies have wast and
waste instead of vast. Modern editions have differed whether it
should be waste or waist, the latter meaning middle. We have
no doubt that vast is the right word. Of course it means void or
vacancy. See The Tempest, Act i. sc. 2, note 32 ; also, The
W'nter's Tale, Act i. sc. 1, note 1 ; and Pericles, Act iii. sc. 1
Dote 1. H.

M So the folio; the first quarto, " Armed to point ;" the other
quartos, " Armed at point." H

89 So all the quartos ; the folio has bestill'd instead of distill'd.
Of course to distill is to fall in drops, to melt ; so that distill'd is
• very natural and fit expression for the cold sweat caused by in-
tense fear. Mr. Collier finds bechill'd in his famous second folio,
and is greatly delighted with it, as usual. The idea of human
bodies being chilled or frozen to a Jelly is rather queer. H

216 HAMLET, ACT L

But answer made it none : yet once, methought,
It lifted up its head, and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak ;
But even then the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish'd from our sight.30

Ham. 'Tis very strange

Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true ;
And we did think it writ down in our duty,
To let you know of it.

Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch to-night 1

All. We do, my lord.

Ham. Arm'd, say you f

All. Arm'd, my lord.

Ham. From top to toe 1

All. My lord, from head to foot.

Ham. Then, saw you not his face?

Hor. O, yes, rny lord ! he wore his beaver up.11

Ham. What ! look'd he frowningly '?

Hor. A countenance more

In sorrow than in anger.

Ham. Pale, or red 1

Hor. Nay, very pale.

Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you 1

*° It is a most inimitable circumstance in Shakespeare so to
have managed this popular idea, as to make the Ghost, which has
been so long obstinately silent, and of course must be dismissed
by the morning, begin or rather prepare to speak, and to be inter
rupted at the very critical time of the crowing of a cock. An-
other poet, according to custom, would have suffered his ghost
lamely to vanish, without contriving this start, which is like a start
of guilt : to say nothing of the aggravation of the future suspense
occasioned by this preparation to speak, and to impart some mys-
terious secret L.ess would have been expected if nothing bad
been promisee — T. WAKTON.

91 That part of the helmet which may be lifted up.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 217

ffor. Most constantly.

Ham. I would I had been there.

Hnr. It would have much amaz'd you.

Ham. Very like, very like. Stay'd it long ?

Hor. While one with moderate haste might tel'
a hundred.

Mar. Ber. Longer, longer.

Hor. Not when I saw't.

Ham. His beard was grizzl'd ? nof

Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silver'd.

Ham. I will watch to-night :

Perchance, 'twill walk again.

Hor. I warrant it wilL

Ham. If it assume my noble father's person,
I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape,
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still ; 32
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue :
I will requite your loves. So, fare you well :
Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
I'll visit you.

All. Our duty to your honour.

Ham. Your loves, as mine to you : Farewell. —
[Exeunt all but HAMLET.
My father's spirit in arms ! all is not well ;
[ doubt some foul play : would the night were come I
Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes,

[Exit.

w The quarto of 1603 reads tenible. The other quartos tenable
The folio of 1623 treble.

218 HAMLET, ACT 1

SCENE III. A Room in POLONIUS' House.

Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA.

Laer. My necessaries are embark'd ; farewell :
And, sister, as the winds give benefit,
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.

Oph. Do you doubt that T

Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favoui
Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood ;
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute ; *
No more.

Oph. No more but so ?

Laer. Think it no more;

For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
In thews,2 and bulk ; but, as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now;
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch*
The virtue of his will : but you must fear ;
His greatness weigh 'd, his will is not his own ;
For he himself is subject to his birth : 4

1 This is the reading1 of the quartos. The folio omits perfume
and. It is plain that perfume is necessary to exemplify the idea
of s'-oeet, not lasting. " The suppliance of a minute" should seem
to mean supplying or enduring only that short space of time; as
transitory and evanescent. The simile is eminently beautiful.

* That is, sinews and muscular strength. See the Second Part
of King Henry IV., Act iii. sc. 2, note 12.

3 Catttel is cautious circumspection, subtlety, or deceit. Min*
sheu explains it, " a crafty way to deceive." See Coriolanus, Acf

v. sc. 1, note 3. — Besmirch is besmear, or sully.

4 This line is found only in the folio. — "This scene," sayi
Coleridge, "must be regarded as one of Shakespeare's lyric

50. III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. ^19

He nmy not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The safety and health of the whole state ; '
And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd
Unto the voice and yielding of that body,
Whereof he is the head. Then, if he says he lovea

you,

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it,
As he in his particular act and place '
May give his saying deed ; which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then, weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,7
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister ;
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes :
The canker galls the infants of the spring,

movements in tne play, and the skill with which it is interwoven
with the dramatic parts is peculiarly an excellence with our Poet.
You experience the sensation of a pause, without the sense of a stop.
You will observe, in Ophelia's short and general answer to the
long speech of Laertes, the natural carelessness of innocence,
which cannot think such a code of cautions and prudences neces-
sary to its own preservation." H.

* Thus the quartos ; the folio has sanctity instead of safety,
supposing- the metre defective. But safety is used as a trisyllable
by Spenser and others Thus Hall in his first Satire :

" Nor fish can dive so deep in yielding1 sea,
Though Thetis self should swear her safety."

6 The folio has "peculiar sect and force" instead of " partic-
ular act and place." H

7 If with too credulous ear you listen to his songs.

220 HAMLET, ACT t

Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd ;
And in tbe morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be warj . then ; best safety lies in fear :
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

Oph. I shall th' effect of this good lesson keep,
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brothei
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.8

Laer. O ! fear me not

F stay too long ; — but here my father comes.

Enter POLONIUS.

A double blessing is a double grace ;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

Pol. Yet here, Laertes ? aboard, aboard, loi

shame !

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There ; my blessing with

you ;

[Laying his Hand on LAERTES' Head.
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character.9 Give thy thoughts no

tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar : 10

* That is, regards not his own lesson. Read was often thus
used as a substantive, for the thing read. H.

9 That is, mark, imprint, strongly infix.

10 Vulgar is here used in its old sense of common. — In th«
second line below, divers modern editions have hooks instead of
hoops, the reading of all the old copies It is not easy to see wha
is gained by the unauthorized change. H

SC. III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 221

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel ;
But do not dull thy palm '' with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in,
Bear 't, that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice :
Take each man's censure,12 but reserve thy judg-
ment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy ; rich, not gaudy :
For the apparel oft proclaims the man ;
And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Are most select and generous, chief in that.13
Neither a borrower nor a lender be :
For loan oft loses both itself and friend ;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all, — to thine ownself be true ;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell : my blessing season this in thee ! u

Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord
Pol. The time invites you : go ; your servants

tend.

Laer. Farewell, Ophelia ; and remember well
What I have said to you.

11 " Do not blunt thy feeling by taking every new acquaintance
by the hand, or by admitting him to the intimacy of a friend."
'* Censure was continually used for opinion. H.

13 The old copies read, " Are of a most select," &.C., to the
destruction of both measure and sense. H.

14 " To season, for to infuse," says Warburton. " It is more
than to infuse, it is to infix in such a manner that it may never
wear out," says Johnson. But hear one of the Poet's contempo-
raries : " To season, to temper wisely, to make more pleasant and
acceptable." — BARKT. This is the sense required, and is a tet-
ter commentary than the conjectures of the learned critics.

222 HAMLET, ACT I

Oph. 'Tis in my memory lock'd,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Laer. Farewell. [Exit LAERTES.

Pol. What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you ?

Oph. So please you, something touching the lord
Hamlet.

Pol. Marry, well bethought :
Tis told me, he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you ; and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and boun

teous.

If it be so, (as so 'tis put on me,
And that in way of caution,) I must tell you,
You do not understand yourself so clearly,
As it behoves my daugHer, and your honoui.
What is between you ? give me up the truth.

Oph. He hath, my lord, of late, made many tenderi
Of his affection to me.

Pol. Affection 1 pooh ! you speak like a green

girl,

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them ?
Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
Pol. Marry, I'll teach you : think yourself a baby ;
That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay,
Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more

dearly ;

Or (not to crack the wind ef the poor phrase,
Wronging it thus) you'll tender me a fool.15

15 Instead of Wronging, the folio has Roaming; an evident roam-
ing1 from sense. Mr. Collier some years ago conjectured running
to be the right word, and has since found running in his second
folio; a coincidence that may be read running. The quartos have
Wrong, which has been changed rightly, we doubt not, to Wrong-
ing. It should be noted that thus refers to what goes before, no!
what follows ; as if he had said, " and so wrong it," or, "thereby

8C. III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 223

Oph. My lord, he hath importun'd me with love,
En honourable fashion.

Pol. Ay, fashion you may call it: go to, go to.

Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech,

my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.18

Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.17 I do

know,

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows : these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, — extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making, —
You must not take for fire. From this time, (laugh

ter,18

Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence ;
Set your entreatments at a higher rate,
Than a command to parley.19 For lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young ;
And with a larger tether may he walk,20
Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows ; for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,

doing' it wrong." Of course he is comparing ihe phrase to a pool
nag, which, if put to too hard a strain, will he wind-broken.

H.

16 The folio gives this line thus : "With all the vows of heav-
en." H.

17 This was a proverbial phrase. There is a collection of epi-
grams under that title : the woodcock being accounted a witless
bird, from a vulgar notion that it had no brains. " Springes to
catrh woodcocks" means "arts to entrap simplicity."

18 Daughter is found only in the folio, which misprints for in-
stead of from. Daughter helps both the measure and the sense 5
and as Jire was then going out of use as a dissyllable, we have
no doubt the Poet supplied the word. H.

IB " Be more difficult of access, and .et the suits to you for that
purpose be of higher respect, than a command to parley."

*° That is, with a longer line ; a horse, fastened by a string to I
stake, is tethered.

224 HAMLET, ACT I

But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,81
The better to beguile. This is for all, —
f would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment's leisure,
As to give words or talk with the lord Hamlet.
Look to't, I charge you ; come your ways.22

Oph. I shall obey, my lord. [Exeunt

SCENE IV. The Platform.

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS.

Ham. The air bites shrewdly ; it is very cold
Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.1

11 The old copies have bonds instead of bawds. TheobalJ
conjectured the latter to be the right word. The use of brokers,
which formerly meant the same as bawd or pander, favours the
change. It is not easy to see what bonds can have to do with
the passage. See Troilus and Cressida, Act v. sc. 11, note 3.

H.

82 I do not believe that in this or any other of the foregoing
speeches of Polonius, Shakespeare meant to bring out the senility
or weakness of that personage's mind. In the great ever-recur-
ring dangers and duties of life, where to distinguish the fit objects
for the application of the maxims collected by the experience of
a long life, requires no fineness of tact, as in the admonitions to
his son and daughter, Polonius is uniformly made respectable. It
is to Hamlet that Polonius is. and is meant to be, contemptible,
because, in inwardness and uncontrollable activity of movement,
Hamlet's mind is the logical contrary to that of Polonius ; and
besides, Hamlet dislikes the man as false to his true allegiance in
the matter of the succession to the crown. — COLERIDGE. H.

1 Eager was used in the sense of the French aigre, sharp, biting.
— "The unimportant conversation," says Coleridge, "with which
this scene opens, is a proof of Shakespeare's minute knowledge
of human nature. It is a well-established fact, that on the brink
of any serious enterprise, or event of moment, men almost inva-
riably endeavour to elude the pressure of their own thoughts by
turning aside to trivial objects and familiar circumstances. Thug
the dialogue on the platform begins with remarks on the nnldneai

SC. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 225

Ham. What hour now ?

Hor. I think it lacks of twelve.

Mar. No, it is struck.

Jlor. Indeed ? I heard it not : it then draws neai

the season,
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

[A Flourish of Trumpets, and Ordnance shot

off, within.
What does this mean, my lord ?

Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes hia

rouse,8

Keeps wassel, and the swaggering up-spring reels ;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

Hor. Is it a custom ?

of the air, and inquiries, obliquely connected indeed with the ex-
pected hour of visitation, but thrown out in a seeming vacuity of
topics, as to the striking1 of the Hock and so forth. The same
desire to escape from the impending thought is carried on in Ham-
let's account of, and moralizing on, the Danish custom of wassail-
ing : he runs off from the particular to the universal, and, in his
repugnance to personal and individual concerns, escapes, as it
were, from himself in generalisations, and smothers the impatience
and utieasv feelings of the moment in abstract reasoning. Besides
this, another purpose is answered ; — for, by thus entangling the
attention of the audience in the nice distinctions and parenthetical
sentences of this speech of Hamlet, Shakespeare takes them com-
pletely by surprise on the appearance of the Ghost, which comes
upon them in all the suddenness of its visionary character. In-
deed, no modern writer would have dared, like Shakespeare, to
have preceded this last visitation by two distinct appearances ; or
could have contrived that the third should rise upon the former two
In impressiveness and solemnity of interest." H.

* To wake is to hold a Late revel or debauch. — Rouse is the
same as carouse. See sc. 2, note 15. — Wassel originally meant
B drinking to one's health ; from woes h<el, health be to you :
hence it came to he used for any festivity of the bottle 'and me
bowl. See Love's Labour's Lost, Act v. sc. 2, note 19 5 and
Macbeth, Act i. sc. 7, note 10.

226 HAMLET, ACT I

Ham. Ay, marry, is't :

But to my mind — though 1 am native here,
And to the manner horn — it is a custom
More honour'd in the hreacli, than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel, east and west,3
Makes us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations :
They clepe us drunkards,4 and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition;5 and, indeed, it takes
From our achievements, though perform'd at height
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth, (wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin ;)
By their o'ergrowth of some complexion,6
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason ;
Or by some habit, that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners ; — that these men, -
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,7 —
Their virtues else, be they as pure as grace,

s This and the following twenty-one lines are wanting in th«
folio. They had probably been omitted in representation, lest
they should give offence to Anne of Denmark.

4 Clepe is call; from the Saxon clypinn. The Danes were in-
deed proverbial as drunkards, and well they might be. according
to the accounts of the time. Heywood, in his Philocothonista. or
The Drunkard Opened, 1635, speaking of what he calls the ve-
nosity of nations, says of the Danes, that they have made a pro-
fession thereof from antiquity, and are the first upon record "that
brought their wassel bowls and elbowe deepe healthes into this
land." Roger Ascham, in one of his Letters, says. " The Em-
peror of Germany who had his head in the glass five times as
lonp as any of us, never drank less than a good quart at once of
Rhenish wine."

6 That is, characterize us by a swinish epithet.

6 By complexion was meant the affections of the body.

7 That is, the influence of the planet supposed to govern our
birth.

SC. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 227

As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault : the dram of base
Doth all the noble substance often dout,8
To his own scandal.9

Enter the Ghost.

Hor. Look, my lord ! it comes \

Ham. Angels and ministers of grace, defend us !

Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd ;

Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell ,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable ;

• To dout is to do out, destroy, or extinguish. The word is stil
•o used in some parts of England. As already stated, the passage
is found only in the quartos, which have "dram of eale" fo?
" dram of base," and of a doubt instead of often dout. Ill is
preferred by some, and bale hy others, as corrections of eale ; we
prefer base as being the proper antithesis of noble. Doubt is also
preferred by some, as meaning to bring into doubt, or throw doubt
upon; but no instance is produced of the word so used. H.

9 In addition to all the other excellences of Hamlet's speech
concerning the wassel-music, — so finely revealing the predom-
inant idealism, the ratiocinative meditativeness of his character, —
it has the advantage of giving nature and probability to the im-
passioned continuity of the speech instantly directed to the Ghost.
The momentum had been given to his mental activity ; the full
current of the thoughts and words had set in ; and the very for-
getfulness, in ihe fervour of his argumentation, of the purpose for
which be was there, aided in preventing the appearance from be-
numbing the mind. Consequently, it acted as a new impulse, —
a sudden stroke which increased the velocity of the body already
in motion, whilst it altered the direction. The co-presence of Ho-
ratio and Marcellus is most judiciously contrived ; for it rendeu
the courage of Hamlet, and his impetuous eloquence, perfectly
intelligible. The knowledge — the sensation — of human auditors
acts as a support and a stimulation a tergo, while the front of the
mind, the whole consciousness of the speaker, is filled, yea, ab-
sorbed, by the apparition. Add. too, that the apparition itself has,
by its previous appearances, been brought nearer to a thing of
this world. This accrescence of objectivity in a ghost that yet
retains all its ghostly attributes and fearful .'objectivity, is trulj
wonderful. — COLERIDGX. K

228 HAMLET, ACT 1

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,10
That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee, Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane : O, answer me !
Let me not burst in ignorance ; but tell,
Why thy canoni/.'d bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements ! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,11
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again ! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel, *
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous ; and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition,
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
[The Ghost beckons HAMLET.

Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

Mar, Look, with what courteous action

It waves you to a more removed ground :
But do not go with it.

Jfor. No, by no means.

Ham. It will not speak ; then, will I follow it.

Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham. Why, what should be the fearl

I do not set my life at a pin's fee ;
And, for my soul, what can it do to that,

10 That is, a shape to be questioned or talked with, a shape in-
viting conversation. Such was the more common meaning of
questionable in the Poet's time. H.

11 So the folio ; all the quartos have interred instead of in-ttrn'd.

H.

11 It appears from Olaus VVormius that it wa* ihe custom to
burv the Danish king's in their armour.

Su. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 229

Being a thing immortal as itself ?

It waves me forth again: — I'll follow it.

Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my

lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,
That beetles13 o'er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of rea-

son,14

And draw you into madness 7 think of it :
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain,
That looks so many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.

Ham. It waves me still. — Go on, I'll follow thee.

Mar. You shall not go, my lord.

Ham. Hold off your hands.

Hor. Be rul'd : you shall not go.

Ham. My fate cries out,

And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve. —

[Ghost beckons.
Still am I call'd. — Unhand me, gentlemen ; —

[Breaking from then.

11 That is, overhangs his base. Thus in Sidney's Arcadia i
" Hills lift up their beetle brows, as if they would overlooke the
pleasantues.se of their under prospect." The verb to beetle is ap-
parently of Shakespeare's creation.

14 To " deprive your sovereignty of reason," signifies to take
from you the command of reason. We have similar instances of
raising the idea of virtues or qualities by giving them rank, in Ban-
quo's " royalty of nature ; " and even in this play we have " no*
bility of love," and '• dignity of love." Deprive was often thai
used in the sense of take away. — Toys, second line after, meaui
whimi. — The last four line* of this speech are not in the folio.

230 HAMLET, ACT i

By Heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets

me:1* —
I say, away ! — Go on, I'll follow thee.

[Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET
Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.
Mar. Let's follow ; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
Hor. Have after. — To what issue will this come ?
Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Den-
mark.

Hor. Heaven will direct it.1*
Mar. Nay, let's follow him.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

A more remote Part of the Platform.

Enter the Ghost and HAMLET.

Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me 1 speak, I'll go
no further.

Ghost. Mark me.

Ham. 1 will.

Ghost. My hour is almost come,

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.

Ham. Alas, poor ghost !

Ghost. Pity me not ; but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.

Ham. Speak ; I am bound to hear.

Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt
hear.

u To let, in old language, is to hinder, or prevent.

18 Marcel lus answers Horatio's question, "To what issue will
this come ? " and Horatio also answers it himself with pious resig-
nation, " Heaven will direct it."

SC. V PRINCE OF DENMARK. 231

Ham. What?

Ghost. I am thy father's spirit ;
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,1
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purg'd away.* But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine : 3
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. — List, list, O list!-
If thou didst ever thy dear father love, —

Ham. O God !

Ghost. Revenge hia foul and most unnatural
murder.

Ham. Murder ?

Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is ;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Ham. Haste me to know't ; that I, with wings
as swift

1 The spirit being supposed to feel the same desires and appe-
tites as when clothed in the flesh, the pains and punishments prom-
ised by the ancient moral teachers are often of a sensual nature
Chaucer in the Persones Tale says, " The misese of hell shall be
in default of mete and drinke." So, too, in The Wyll of lh*<
Devyll : " Thou shall lye in frost and fire, with sicknes and hun-
ger." — Heath proposed " lasting fires," and such is the change
in Collier's second folio. H.

1 Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonic hell into "the
punytion of the saulis in purgatory." " It is a nedeful thyng to
suffer paines and torment; — sum in the wyndis, sum under the wai-
ter, and in the fire uther sum : thus the mony vices coutrakkil iu
the corpis be done away and purgit."

* Fretful is the reading of the folio 5 the quartos read fearfvL

232 HAMLET, ACT I.

As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.

Ghost. I find thee apt ;

And duller sliould'st thou be than the fat weed
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,4
Would'st thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear '•
'Tis given out, that sleeping in mine orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abus'd : but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown.

Ham. O, my prophetic soul ! my uncle !

Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,
(O, wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce !) won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
O, Hamlet ! what a falling-off was there !
From me, whose love was of that dignity,
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage ; and to decline
Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine !
But virtue, as it never will be mov'd,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven ;
So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,

4 So reads the folio ; the quartos all have roots instead of rott
Most editors prefer roots ; but, surely, rots is much more conso-
nant to the sense of the passage. To speak of a thing as rotting
itself is not indeed common ; but we have it in Antony and Cleo-
patra, thus :

" Like a vagabond flag upon the stream,
Go to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
To rot itself with motion." «. .

•C V PHINCE OF DENMARK. 233

And prey on garbage.

But, soft ! methinks, I scent the morning air :

Brief let me be. — Sleeping within mine orchard,

My custom always in the afternoon,*

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,

With juice of cursed hebenon in a phial,

And in the porches of mine ears did pour

The leperous distilment ; 8 whose effect

Holds such an enmity with blood of man,

That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through

The natural gates and alleys of the body ;

And with a sudden vigour it doth posset

And curd, like eager droppings into milk,T

The thin and wholesome blood : so did it mine ;

And a most instant tetter bark'd about,8

Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,

All my smooth body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,

* So the folio and the quarto of 1603; the other quartos, "of
the afternoon." — Secure, in the next line, is a Latinism, securut
quiet, unguarded. H.

* Hebenon is probably derived from henbane, the oil of which,
according to Pliny, dropped into the ears, disturbs the brain . and
there is sufficient evidence that it was held poisonous. So in An-
ton's Satires, 1606 : '• The poison'd henbane, whose cold juice doth
kill." And Draylon, in his Barons' Wars: "The poisoning hen-
bane and the mandrake dread." It is, however, possible that poi-
socous qualities may have been ascribed to ebony ; called ebene,
and nbeno, by old English writers. So Marlow, in his Jew of
Malta, speaking of noxious things : "The blood of Hydra, Ler-
na's bane, the juyce of hebon, and cocytus breath." The French
word liebenin, which would be applied to any thing made from
ebony, comes indeed \"ery close to the hebenon of Shakespeare.

7 In the preceding scene, note 1, we have had eager in the sense
of sharp, biting. Baret explains, " Eger, sower, sharp, acidus,
aigre." " Eager droppings " are drops of acid. H.

8 So all the quartos ; the folio has bak'd instead of bark'd; a
misprint, probably, but preferred by some editors. — Instant
teems to be here used in its Latin sense ; pressing, urgent, harass-
ing. H.

234 HAMLET, ACT 1

Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatch'd ; *
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd ; 10
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.

Ham. O, horrible ! O, horrible ! most horrible ! *
Ghost. If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught : leave her to Heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once !
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneifectual fire:18
Adieu, adieu ! Hamlet, remember me. [Exit*

* The first quarto has depriv'd, and Mr. Collier's second folio,
despoil'd. Despatch'd is better than either, because to the sense
of deprivation it adds that of suddenness. See King Richard II.
Act v. sc. 4, note 2. H.

10 Unhousel'd is without having received the sacrament. Thus
in Hormanni Vulgaria, 1519 : " He is departed without shryfle and
housylt." Disappointed is unappointed, unprepared. A man well-
furnished for an enterprise is said to be well-appointed. Unanel'd
!s without extreme unction. Thus in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey:
' Then we began to put him in mind of Christ's passion ; and sent
ror the abbot of the place to anneal him."

1 The old copies print this line as part of the Ghost's speech.
Johnson thought it should be transferred to Hamlet, and Garriclr
delivered it as belonging to the Prince, according to the tradition
of the stage. These authorities and the example of Mr. Y'erplanck
have determined us to the change. H.

12 Uneffectual is shining without heat. In the next line, the
quartos, instead of Hamlet, have adieu repeated the third time. —
The paper of Blackwood, quoted in our Introduction, has the fol-
lowing excellent remarks on the Ghost : " The effect at first pro^
duced by the apparition is ever afterwards wonderfully sustained
1 do not merely allude to the touches of realization which, in the
poetry of the scenes, pass away from no memory ; — such as

BC. V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 235

Ham. O, all you host of heaven ! O earth ! What

else?
And shall I couple hell 1 — O fie ! — Hold, hold, my

heart!

And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up ! — Remember thee 7
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe.13 Remember thee T
Yea, from the tables of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures part,
That youth and observation copied there ; 14
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by Heaven.
O, most pernicious woman !
O, villain, villain, smiling, damned villain !
My tables, — meet it is, I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain ; Ie

« The star,' — ' Where now it burns,' — ' The sepulchre,' — ' The
complete steel,' — 'The glimpses of the moon,' — 'Making night
hideous,' — ' Look, how pale he glares,' — and other wild expres
sions, that are like fastenings by which the mind clings to its terror.
I rather allude to the whole conduct of the Ghost. We ever be-
hold in it a troubled spirit leaving its place of suffering to revisit
the life it had left, to direct and command a retribution that must
be accomplished. He speaks of the pain to which he is gone, but
that fades away in the purpose of his mission. 'Pity me not:'
He bids Hamlet revenge, though there is not the passion of re-
venge in his discourse. The penal fires have purified the grosser
man. The spectre utters but a moral declaration of guilt, and
•wears its living son to the fulfilment of a righteous vengeance."

H.

13 That is, in this head confused with thought.

14 " Tables or books, or registers for memorie of things," were
then used by all ranks, and contained prepared leaves from which
wha*. was written with a silver style could easily be effaced.

18 I remember nothing equal to this burst, unless it be the first
speech of Prometheus, in the Greek drama, after the exit of Vul-
can and the two Alrites. But Shakespeare alone could have pro

236 HAMLET, ACT 1

At least, I am sure it may be so in Denmark :

[Writing.

So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word ;
It is, " Adieu, adieu ! remember me."
I have sworn't.

Hor. [Within.] My lord, my lord !

Mar. [Within.] Lord Hamlet !

If or. [ Within.] Heaven secure him !

Mar. [Within.] So be it !

Hor. [ Within.] Illo, ho, ho, my lord !

Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy ! come, bird, come.1*

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

Mar. How is't, my noble lord !

Hor. What news, my lord ?

Ham. O, wonderful !

Hor. Good my lord, tell it.

Ham. No ; you'll reveal it.

Hor. Not I, my lord, by Heaven.

Mar. Nor I, my lord.

Ham. How say you, then ; would heart of man

once think it ? —
But you'll be secret 1

Hor. Mar. Ay, by Heaven, my lord.

Ham. There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Den-
mark,
But he's an arrant knave.

duced the vow of Hamlet to make his memory a blank of all
maxims and generalized truths that " observation had copied
there," — followed immediately by the speaker noting down the
generalized fact, " That one may smile, and smile, and be a vil-
lain."— COLERIDGE. H.

16 This is the call which falconers use to their hawk in the air
when they would have him come down to them. — The quartoi
assign some of these speeches differently, and have boy instead of
bird. We follow the fol'o here. H.

C. r. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 237

Hor. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from

the grave
To tell us this.

Ham. Why, right; you are i'the right;

And so, without more circumstance at all,
( hold it fit that we shake hands, and part :
You, as your business and desire shall point you,-—
For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is ; — and, for mine own poor part,
Look you, I'll go pray.17

Hor. These are but wild and whirling words, my
lord.

Ham. I'm sorry they offend you, heartily ; yes,
'Faith, heartily.

Hor. There's no offence, my lord.

Ham. Yes, by St. Patrick,18 but there is, Horatio,
And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you :
For your desire to know what is between us,
O'ermaster 't as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
G\ve me one poor request.

Hor. What is't, my lord 1 we will.

Ham. Never make known what you hare seen
to-night.

Hor. Mar. My lord, we will not.

Ham. Nay, but swear't.

Hor. In faith, my lord, not I.

Mar. Nor I, my lord, in faith.

Ham. Upon my sword.

Mar. We have sworn, my lord, already.

17 The words, Look you, are found only in the folio. h.

18 Warburton has ingeniously defended Shakespeare for making
the Danish prince swear by St. Patrick, by observing that the
•whole northern world had their learning from Ireland.

238 HAMLET, ACT 1

Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.

Ham. Ha, ha, boy ! say'st thou so 1 art thou

there, true-penny ?

Come on, — you hear this fellow in the cellarage,—
Consent to swear.

Hor. Propose the oath, my lord.

Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword.19

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.

Ham. Hie et ubique ! then, we'll shift our

ground. —

Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword :
Never to speak of this that you have heard,
Swear by my sword.

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.*0

Ham. Well said, old mole ! canst work i'the earth

so fast ?
A. worthy pioneer ! — Once more remove, good

friends.
Hor. O, day and night ! but this is wondrous

strange.
Ham. And therefore as a stranger give it wel

come.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.21

19 The custom of swearing1 by the sword, or rather by the cross
at the upper end of it, is very ancient. The name of Jesus was
not uufrequently inscribed on the handle. The allusions to this
custom are very numerous in our old writers.

20 Here again we follow the folio, with which the first quarto
agrees. In the other quartos, this speech reads, " Swear by his
nrord;" and the last two lines of the preceding speech are trans*
posed. In the next line, the folio has ground instead of earth.

H.
*' So read all the quartos ; the folio, " our philosophy." Tbo

SC. V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 239

But come ; —

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,

How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself; —

As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet

To put an antic disposition on ; —

That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,

With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake,

Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,

As, " Well, well, we know ; " — or, " We could, an

if we would ; " — or, "If we list to speak ; " — or

"There be, an if they might ;" —

Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note

That you know aught of me : — this not to do,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you.

Swear.

Ghost, [Beneath.] Swear.

Ham. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit ! — So, gentle

men,

With all my love I do commend me to you :
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, t' express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together ;
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint; — O, cursed spite !
That ever I was born to set it right.
Nay, come ; let's go together.22 [Exeunt

passage has had so long a lease of familiarity, as it stands in the
text, that it seems best not to change it. Besides, your gives a
nice characteristic shade of meaning that is lost in our. Of course
it is not Horatio's philosophy, but your philosophy, that Hamlet
is speaking of. H.

22 This part of the scene after Hamlet's interview with the Ghost
has been charged with an improbable eccentricity. But the truth
is, that after the mind has been stretched beyond its usual pitch
and tone, it must either sink into exhaustion and inanity, or seek
relief by change. It is thus well known, that persons conversant
'n deeds of cruelty contrive to escape from conscience by con-

840 HAMLET, ACT II.

ACT II.

SCENE I. A Room in POLONIUS' House.

Enter POLONIUS and RETNALDO.

Pol. Give him this money, and these notes, Rey«

naldo.

Rey. I will, my lord.
PoL You shall do marvellous wisely, good Rey

naldo,

Before you visit him, to make inquiry
Of his behaviour.

Rey. My lord, I did intend it.

PoL Marry, well said ; very well said. Look

you, sir,

Inquire me first what Danskers l are in Paris ;
And how, and who, what means, and -where they
keep,

necting something of the ludicrous with them, and by inventing
grotesque terms and a certain technical phraseology to disguise
the horror of their practices. Indeed, paradoxical as it may ap-
pear, the terrible by a law of the human mind always touches on
the verge of the ludicrous. Both arise from the perception of
something out of the common order of tnings, — something, in
fact, out of its place ; and if from this we can abstract the danger,
the uncommonness alone will remain, and the sense of the ridicu-
lous be excited. The close alliance of these opposites — they are
not contraries — appears from the circumstance, that laughter is
equally the expression of extreme anguish and horror as of joy :
as there are tears of sorrow and tears of joy, so there is a laugh
of terror and a laugh of merriment. These complex causes will
naturally have produced in Hamlet the disposition to escape from
his own feelings of the overwhelming and supernatural by a wild
transition to the ludicrous, — a sort of cunning bravado, border-
ing on the flights of delirium. — COLERIDGE. H.

1 That is, Danes. Warner, in his Albion's England, calls Den-
niaik Dantke.

aC. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 241

What company, at what expense ; and, finding,
By this encompassment and drift of question,
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it :
Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him ;
As thus, — "I know his father, and his friends,
And, in part, him : " — do you mark this, Reynaldo 7

Rey. Ay, very well, my lord.

Pol. "And, in part, him; but," you may say

" not well :

But, if 't be he I mean, he's very wild ;
Addicted so and so ;" — and there put on him
What forgeries you please ; marry, none so rank
As may dishonour him, take heed of that ;
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips,
.As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.

Rey. As gaming, my lord ?

Pol. Ay, or drinking, fencing,2 swearing, quar-
relling,
Drabbing : — you may go so far.

Rey. My lord, that would dishonour him.

Pol. 'Faith, no ; as you may season it in tho

charge.

You must not put another scandal on him,
That he is open to incontinency ;
That's not my meaning : but breathe his faults so

quaintly,

That they may seem the taints of liberty ;
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind ;

* " The cunning of fencers is now applied to quarrelling ; they
thinke themselves no men, if, for stirring of a straw, they prove
Dot their valure uppon some bodies fleslie." — Gossan'* Schole of
1579.

242 HAMLET, ACT H

A savageness3 in unreclaimed blood,
Of general assault.

Rey. But, my good lord, — •

Pol. Wherefore should you do this?

Rey. Ay, my lord, I would know that.

Pol. Marry, sir, here's my drift,
And I believe it is a fetch of warrant:4
You laying these slight sullies on my son,
As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i'the working,
Murk you,

Your party in converse, him you would sound,
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur'd,
He closes with you in this consequence :
•'Good sir," or so; or "friend," or "gentleman," —
According to the phrase, or the addition,
Of man, and country ; —

Rey. Very good, my lord.

Pol. And then, sir, does he this, — he does —
What was I about to say ? — By the mass, I was
about to say something: — Where did I leave]

Rey. At, closes in the consequence,
As "friend or so" and " gentlenmn." 6

Pol. At, closes in the consequence, — ay, marry;
He closes thus : "I know the gentleman ;
1 saw him yesterday," or " t'other day,"
Or then, or then ; with such, or such ; " and, as you
say,

1 A wildness of untamed blood, such as youth is generally as-
••iled by.

4 " A fetch of warrant " seems to mean an allowable stratagem
or practice. — The quartos have " fetch of wit." H.

* This line is in the folio only. In the third line before, the
folio omits " By the mass," probably on account of the statute
against profanity ; and, in the second line alter, inserts with yon
between doses and thus. H.

SO'. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 243

There was he gaming ; there o'ertook in 's rouse ;

There falling out at tennis : " or, perchance,

" I saw him enter such a house of sale,

Videlicit, a brothel," or so forth. —

See you now ;

Your bail of falsehood takes this carp of truth;

And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,

With wiridlaces, and with assays of bias,'

By indirections find directions out :

So, by my former lecture and advice,

Shall you my son. You have me, have you not 1

Rey. My lord, I have.

Pol. God be wi' you ; fare you well.

Rey. Good my lord.

Pol. Observe his inclination in yourself.7

Rey. I shall, my lord.

Pol. And let him ply his music.

Rey. Well, my lord. [Exit.

Enter OPHELIA.

Pol. Farewell ! — How now, Ophelia ! what's the
matter ?

Oph. Alas, my lord ! I have been so affrighted ! *

Pol. With what, in the name of God ?

Oph. My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,
Lord Hamlet, — with his doublet all unbrac'd ;
No hat upon his head ; his stockings foul'd,

• That is, by tortuous devices and side essays. " To astcy n
rather essay, of the French word essayer, tentare," says Baret

7 That is, in your own person ; add your own observations of
his conduct to these inquiries respecting him.

* So the folio ; the quartos have, " O, my lord, my lord ! " in-
stead of, "Alas, my lord! " Also, in the next line but one, the
quartos lu\ve closet instead of chamber. — Here, as in divers other
places, the folio substitutes Heaven for God ; doubtless on acccunl
vf the statute mentioned in note 5 u.

244 HAMLET, ACT U.

Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ankle ; 9

Pale as his shirt ; his knees knocking each other;

And with a look so piteous in purport,

As if he had been loosed out of hell,

To speak of horrors, — he comes before me.

Pol Mad for thy love ?

Oph. My lord, I do not know ;

But, truly, I do fear it.

Pol. ' What said he ?

Oph. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard ;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm ;
And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face,
As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;
At last, — a little shaking of mine arm,
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,—
He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound,
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,10
And end his being. That done, he lets me go,
And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd,
He seem'd to find his way without his eyes ;
For out o'doors he went without their help,
And, to the last, bended their light on me.

Pol. Come, go with me : I will go seek the king.
This is the very ecstasy of love ;
Whose violent property fordoes itself,11
And leads the will to desperate undertakings,
As oft as any passion under heaven,
That does afflict our natures. I am sorry, —
What ! have you given him any hard words of late 1

• Hanging down like the ioose cincture which confines the fet-
ters or gyves round the ankles.

10 That is, his breatt. " The bulke or breast of a man Thora*
la poitrine." — BARET.

1 • To fordo and to undo were synonymous.

C. n PRINCE OF DENMARK. 245

Oph. No, my good lord ; but, as you did com-
mand,

I did repel his letters, and denied
His access to me.

Pol. That hath made him mad.

I am sorry, that with better heed and judgment,
I had not quoted him : 12 I fear'd ho did but trifle.
And meant to wreck thee ; but, beshrew my jeal

ousy !

It seems it is as proper to our age13
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion. Come, go we to the king :
This must be known ; which, being kept close, might

move
More grief to hide, than hate to utter love.14

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. A Room in the Castle.

Enter the King, the Queen, ROSENCRANTZ, Gun,
DENSTERN, and Attendants.

King. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz, and Guildew-
stern !

1 T} quote is to note, to mark, or observe.

11 The folio substitutes It seem-i for By Heaven, of the quartos.
Coleridge here makes the following remark : "In this admirable
scene, Polouius, who is throughout the skeleton of his own former
skill in state-craft, hunts the trail of policy at a dead scent, sup-
plied by the weak fever-smell in his own nostrils." H

14 " This must be made known to the king, for the hiding Ham-
let's love might occasion more mischief to us from him and the
queen, than the uttering or revealing it will occasion hate and re-
sentment from Hamlet." Johnson, whose explanation this is, at-
tributes the obscurity to the Poet's " affectation of concluding the
scene with a couplet." There would surely have been more af-
fectation in deviating from the universally established custom —
The quartos add Come, after the closing couplet

246 HAMLET, ACT II

Moreover that we much did long to see you,'
The need we had to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet's transformation ; so I call it,
Since nor th' exVerior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was. What it should be,
More than his father's death, that thus hath put him
So much from th' understanding of himself,
I cannot dream of:2 I entreat you both,
That, — being of so young days brought up with him
And, since, so neighbour'd to his youth and hu-
mour,—

That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time ; so by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures ; and to gather,
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
That, open'd, lies within our remedy.

Queen. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of

you;

And, sure I am, two men there are not living,
To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
To show us so much gentry 3 and good will,
As to expend your time with us awhile,
For the supply and profit of our hope,4
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king's remembrance.

Ros. Both your majesties

1 We do not recollect another instance of moreover that used in
this way. Of course, the sense is the same as besidet that, or
« over and above the fact that," &c. H.

* So the quartos ; the folio, " deem of." In the next line but
one, the quartos have haviour instead of humour. H.

* Gentry for gentle courtesy. — The last line but one, in the pre

speech, is not in the folio. H.

Supply and profit is aid and advantage.

SC. II PRINCE OF DENMARK. 247

Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more iulo command
Than to entreaty.

GuiL But we both obey ;

And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,
To lay our service freely at your feet,
To be commanded.

King. Thanks, Rosencrantz, and gentle Guilder*'

stern :

Queen. Thanks, Guildenstern, and gentle Rosen-
crantz :

And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too-much-changed son. — Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

GuiL Heavens make our presence, and our prac-
tices,
Pleasant and helpful to him !

Queen. Ay, amen !

[Exeunt Ros. GUIL. and some Attendants.

Enter POLONIUS.

Pol. Th' ambassadors from Norway, my good

lord,
Are joyfully return'd.

King. Thou still hast been the father of good

news.
Pol. Have I, my lord 1 Assure you, my good

liege,

I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God, and to my gracious king;
And I do think (or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath us'd to do) that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.

King. O ! speak of that ; that do I long to heal

248 HAMLET, ACT 11

Pol. Give, first, admittance to th' ambassadors ;
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

King. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them
in. — [Exit POLONIUS.

He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
The head and source of all your son's distemper.

Queen. I doubt, it is no other but the main ;
His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage.6

Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and COR-
NELIUS.

King. Well, we shall sift him. — Welcome, my

good friends !
Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway ?

Vol. Most fair return of greetings and desires
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew's levies ; which to him appear'd
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack ;
But, better look'd into, he truly found
It was against your highness : whereat griev'd, —
That so his sickness, age, and impotence,
Was falsely borne in hand,6 — sends out arrests
On Fortinbras ; which he in brief obeys,
Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give th' assay of arms against your majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee ; '
Acd his commission, to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack :

* So the folio ; the quartos have hasty instead of o'erhasty.

H.

' To bear in hand is to lead along- by assurances or expecta
lions. See Measure for Measure, Act i. sc 6, note 6. H.

7 That is, the ki;ig gave his nephew a feud or fee in land ot
(bat annual value.

SC 11. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 249

With an iutreaty, herein further shown,

[Giving a Paper

That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise ;
On such regards of safety and allowance,
As therein are set down.

King. It likes us well ;

And, at our more consider'd time, we'll read,
Answer, and think upon this business:
Meantime, we thank you for your well-took labour
Go to your rest ; at night we'll feast together :
Most welcome home !

[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.

Pol. This business is well ended

My liege, and madam, to expostulate 8
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night, night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad :
Mad call I it ; for, to define true madness,
What is't, but to be nothing else but mad :
But let that go.

Queen. More matter, with less art.

Pol. Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true : 'tis true 'tis pity,
And pity 'tis, 'tis true : a foolish figure ;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then ; and now remains,
That we find out the cause of this effect ;
Or rather say, the cause of this defect ;
For this effect defective comes by cause :

8 That is, to inquire; another Latinism.

250 HAMLET, ACT II

Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.

Perpend :

I have a daughter ; have, while she is mine ;

Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,

Hath given me this : Now gather and surmise.

"To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the mow

beautified Ophelia,"* —

That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase ; " beautified" it

a vile phrase ; but you shall hear. — Thus :

" In her excellent white bosom, these," &c.10
Queen. Came this from Hamlet to her 1
Pol. Good madam, stay awhile ; I will be faith-
ful.—

[Reads.] Doubt thou the stars are fire,

Doubt that the sun doth move ;
Doubt truth to be a liar ;
But never doubt I love.

O, dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers : I have not
art to reckon my groans ; but that I love thee best, O moat
best ! believe it Adieu.

Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst

this machine is to him, HAMLKI.

This in obedience hath my daughter shown me ;
And, more above, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.

King. But how hath she

lleceiv'd his love?

Pol. What do you think of me ?

King. As of a man faithful and honourable.

' Beautified is not uncommon in dedications and encomiastic
verses of the Poet's age.

10 The word these was usually added at the end of the super
scription of letters. See The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iii
sc. 1, note 10.

8C. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 251

Pol. I would fain prove so. But what might

you think, —

When I had seen this hot love on the wing,
(As I perceiv'd it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me,) what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play'd the desk, or table-book ;
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb;11
Or look'd upon this love with idle sight ;
What might you think 1 no, I went round 1Z to work,
And my young mistress thus did I bespeak :
" Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star ; I3
This must not be : " and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice ;
And he, repulsed, (a short tale to make,)
Fell into a sadness ; then into a fast ;
Thence to a watch ; thence into a weakness ;
Thence to a lightness ; and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we wail for.14

King. Do you think 'tis this?

Queen. It may be, very likely.

PoL Hath there been such a time (I'd fain

know that)

That I have positively said, " 'Tis so,"
When it prov'd otherwise?

King. Not that I know.

11 That is, if I had given my heart a hint to be mute about
lleir passion. " Conni ventia, a winking a* ; a sufferance ; a feign-
ing not to tee or know." The quartos have war-king instead of
winking.

12 Plainly, roundly, without reserve.

1J That is, not wiihin ihy destiny ; alluding to the supposed in-
fluence of the stars on the fortune of life. H
So the folio ; the quartos have mourn instead of wail.

252 HAMLET, ACT 11

PoL Take this from this, if this be otherwise :

[Pointing to his Head and Shoulder
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.

King. How may we try it further ?

PoL You know, sometimes he walks four hours

together,
Here in the lobby.

Queen. So he does, indeed.

Pol. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him
Be you and I behind an arras then :
Mark the encounter ; if he love her not,
And be not from his reason fallen thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm, and carters.

King. We will try it.

Enter HAMLET, reading.

Queen. But, look, where sadly the poor wretch
comes reading.

Pol. Away ! I do beseech you, both away.
I'll board16 him presently: — O! give me leave.—
[Exeunt King, Queen, and Attendants,
How does my good lord Hamlet?

Ham. Well, god-'a-mercy.

Pol. Do you know me, my lord 1

Ham. Excellent well ; you're a fishmonger.1*

PoL Not I, my lord.

Ham. Then, I would you were so honest a man.

Pol. Honest, my lord 1

*• That is, accost, address him. So in Twelfth Night, A.ct L
ic. 3 : " Accost is, front her, board her, woo her, assail her."

H.

'• " That is," says Coleridge, " you are sent to fish out tbii
secret. This is Hamlet's own meaning." H.

SC. II PRINCE OF DENMARK. 253

Ham. Ay, sir ; to be honest, as this world goes,
is to be one man pick'd out of ten thousand.

Pol. That's very true, my lord.

Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead
dog, being a good kissing carrion,17 — Have you a
daughter ?

Pol. I have, my lord.

Ham. Let her not walk i'the sun : conception is
a blessing ; but not as your daughter may con
ceive : 18 — friend, look to't.

17 Such is the reading of all the old copies. Warburton
changed it to, " being a sod, kissing carrion," and supported the
change with a long comment which, in the opinion of Dr. Johnson,
" almost sets the critic on a level with the author ! " The critic re-
marks that Shakespeare "had an art not only of acquainting the
audience with what his actors say, but what they think ; " and he
regards the passage as intended to " vindicate the ways of Prov-
idence in permitting evil to abound in the world." He sums up
his argument thus : " If the effect follows the thing operated upon,
carrion, and not the thing operating, a God, why need we wonder
that, the supreme Cause of all things diffusing blessings on man,
who is a dead carrion, he. instead of a proper return, should breed
corruption and vices ? " The comment is certainly most ingenious :
too much so indeed, as it looks as if the critic were attributing his
own thoughts to the Poet. Shakespeare, it is true, elsewhere calls
the sun " common-kissing Titan ; " but if, in this case, good had
been a misprint for god, it would most likely have begun with a
capital, (rood. Either way, the passage is very obscure ; Cole-
ridge thinks it is purposely so. We are unable to decide whether
good kissing should mean good to kiss, or good at kissing, that is,
at returning a kiss. Mr. Verplanck explains it thus : " If even a
dead dog can be kissed by the sun, how much more is youthful beau-
ty in danger of corruption, unless it seek the shade." This is, on
the whole, the best we have seen, but we must add Coleridge's
explanation : " Why, fool as he is, he is some degrees in rank
above a dead dog's carcass ; and if the sun can raise life out of
a dead dog, why may not good fortune, that favours fools, have
raised a lovely girl out of this dead-alive old fool ? " In eluci-
dation of the passage, M alone aptly quotes the following from the
play of King Edward III., 1596 :

" The freshest summer's day doth soonest taint
The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss." H

IB So the folio ; not is wanting in the quartos. The sense of

254 HAMLET, ACT 1L

Pol. [Aside.] How say you by that ? Still harp-
ing on my daughter : — yet he knew me not at first ;
he said, I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far
gone : and, truly in my youth I suflfer'd much ex-
tremity for love ; very near this. I'll speak to him
again. — What do you read, my lord?

Ham. Words, words, words !

Pol. What is the matter, my lord 1

Ham. Between whom 1

Pol. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord

Ham. Slanders, sir : for the satirical rogue says
here, that old men have gray beards ; that their
faces are wrinkled ; their eyes purging thick amber
and plum-tree gum ; and that they have a plentiful
lack of wit, together with most weak hams : all of
which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently
believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set
down ; for yourself, sir, should be as old as I am,'
if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol. [Aside.] Though this be madness, yet there's
method in't. — Will you walk out of the air, my
lord?

Ham. Into my grave ?

Pol. Indeed, that is out o'the air. — How preg-
nant sometimes his replies are ! a happiness that
often madness hits on, which reason and sanity
could not so prosperously be deliver'd of. I will
leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of
meeting between him and my daughter My hon

toe passage is much the same either way, and needs no explana
tion. Of course Hamlet's language is a part of his " antic dis
position," and meant to favour the notion of his being insane.

H.

*• So the folio ; the quartos have shall grow instead of shouU
be. a.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 256

ourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of
you.90

Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing
that I will more willingly part withal ; except my
life, except my life, except my life.

Pol. Fare you well, my lord.

Ham. These tedious old fools !

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDESSTERN.

Pol. You go to seek the lord Hamlet; there
he is.

Ros. [To POLONICS.] God save you, sir.

[Exit POLONIUS.

Gruil. My honour'd lord ! —

Ros. My most dear lord ! —

Ham. My excellent good friends ! How dost
thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz ! Good lads,
how do ye both ?

Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.

Cruil. Happy, in that we are not overhappy ;
On fortune's cap we are not the very button

Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe 1

Ros. Neither, my lord.

Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the
middle of her favours?

Guil. 'Faith, her privates we.

Ham. In the secret parts of fortune ? O, most
tme! she is a strumpet. What news?

Ros. None, my lord, but that the world's grown
honest.

*> Such is the folio reading ; the quartos give the latter pait of
tht speech thus : " I will leave him and my daughter. — My lord,
I will take my leave of you." — In the next speech, the folio has.
" except my life, my life." Coleridge says of the quarto reading
— " Th;s repetition strikes me as most admirable." H.

256 HAMLET, ACT II.

Ham. Then is dooms-day near. But your newg
s not true. Let me question more in particular :
What have you, my good friends, deserved at the
hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison
hither ?

Guil. Prison, mj lord !

Ham. Denmark's a prison.

Ros. Then is the world one.

Ham. A goodly one ; in which there are many
confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one
o'the worst.

Ros. We think not so, my lord.

Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you ; for there is
nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it
so: to me it is a prison.

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one : 'tis
too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O God ! I could be bounded in a nutshell,
and count myself a king of infinite space, were it
not that I have bad dreams.

Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition ; for
the very substance of the ambitious is merely the
shadow of a dream.

Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.

Ros. Truly ; and I hold ambition of so airy and
light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow.

Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our
monarchs and outstretch'd heroes the beggars'
shadows.81 Shall we to the court ? for, by my fay,
I cannot reason.22

81 If ambition is such an unsubstantial thing, then are our beg-
gars (who at least can dream of greatness) the only things of sub-
stance, and monarchs and heroes, though appearing to fill such
mighty spare with their ambition, but the shadows of the beggars'
dreams. — JOH NSON.

** Fay is merely a diminutive of faith. See The Taming of
the Shrew, Induction, sc. "2, note 6. a.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 257

Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you.

Ham. No such matter : I will not sort you with
the rest of my servants ; for, to speak to you like an
honest man, I am most dreadfully attended.23 But,
in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at
Elsinore 1

Ros. To visit you, my lord ; no other occasion.

Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in
thanks, but I thank you ; and sure, dear friends,
my thanks are too dear, a half-penny. Were you
not sent for ? Is it your own inclining ? is it a free
visitation ? Come, come ; deal justly with me : come,
come ; nay, speak.

Guil. What should we say, my lord ?

Ham. Any thing, but to the purpose. You were
sent for ; and there is a kind of confession in your
looks, which your modesties have not craft enough
to colour : I know the good king and queen have
sent for you.

Ros. To what end, my lord ?

Ham. That you must teach me. But let me con
jure you by the rights of our fellowship, by the con-
sonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-
preserved love, and by what more dear a better
proposer could charge you withal, be even and di-
rect with me, whether you were sent for, or no ?

Ros. [ To GUILDEN.] What say you ?

Ham. [Aside.] Nay, then I have an eye of you t4
— If you love me, hold not off.

Guil. My lord, we were sent for.

** The foregoing1 part of the scene, beginning with, " Let me
question more in particular," is found only in the folio.-—" What
make you," in the next line, is, " What do you." The usage was
common. n.

** That is, I will watch you sharply ; of for on, a common
•sage. H.

'•258 HAMLET, ACT li.

Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipa-
tion prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to
the king and queen moult no feather.25 I have of
late (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth,
foregone all custom of exercises ; and, indeed, it
goes so heavily with my disposition, that this good-
ly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promon-
tory ; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you,
this brave o'erhanging firmament,26 this majestical
roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appeareth
nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation
of vapours. What a piece of work is a man ! How
noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties ! in form
and moving, how express and admirable ! in action,
how like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a
god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of ani-
mals ! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence
of dust ? man delights not me ; no, nor woman nei-
ther, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Ros. My lord, there is no such stuff in my
thoughts.

Ham. Why did you laugh, then, when I said,
"Man delights not me ? "

** That is, not change a feather ; moult being an old word foi
change ; applied especially to birds when putting on a new suit of
clothes. So in Bacon's Natural! Historic : " Some birds there be
that upon their moulting do turn colour ; as robin-redbreasts, after
their moulting, grow red again by degrees." — The whole passage
seems to mean, " my anticipation shall prevent your discovering to
me the purpose of your visit, and so your promise of secrecy will
be perfectly kept." H.

M So the quartos ; the folio omits firmament, and so of course
turns o'erhanging into a substantive. It may well be thought,
that by the omission the language becomes more Shakespearian,
without any loss of eloquence. But the passage, as it stands, is
so much a household «vord, that it seems best not to change it. —
The folio also has. " appears no other thing to me than," instead
of, " appeareth nothing to me but." a.

sc- II. PRINCE OF DENMARK.. 259

Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in
man, what lenten entertainment the players shall
receive from you : *~ we coted them on the way, and
hither are they coming to offer you service.

Ham. He that plays the king shall be welcome ;
his majesty shall have tribute of me : the adven-
turous knight shall use his foil and target ; the
lover shall not sigh gratis ; the humorous man shall
end his part in peace ; the clown shall make those
laugh, whose lungs are tickled o'the sere ; S8 and
the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse
•hall halt for't. — What players are they ?

Ros. Even those you were wont to take such de-
light in, the tragedians of the" city.

Ham. How chances it, they travel ? their resi-
dence, both in reputation and profit, was better both
ways.

Ros. I think, their inhibition comes by the means
of the late innovation.29

n "Lenten entertainment" is entertainment for the season of
Lent, when players were not allowed to perform in public. See
Twelfth Night, Act i. sc. 5, note 1. — To cote is to pas* alongside,
to pas* by, or overtake. So in The Return from Parnassus :
"Marry, presently coted and outstript them." H.

88 The meaning1 appears to he, the clown shall make even those
laugh whose lungs are tickled with a dry cough, or huskiness ; by
his merriment shall convert even their coughing into laughter.
The same expression occurs in Howard's Defensat've against tho
Poyson of supposed Prophecies, 1620 : " Discovering the moods
and humours of the vulgar sort to be so loose and tickle of thr
teare." The words are found only in the folio. The first quark
has, " make them laugh that are tickled in the lungs."

*9 Referring, no doubt, to the order of the Privy Council, June,
1600, quoted in our Introduction to Twelfth Night, Vol i., page 337.
By this order, the players were inhibited from acting in or near
the city during the season of Lent, besides being very much re-
stricted at all other seasons, and hence " chances it they travel,"
or ttroll into the country. — As the matter involves some curious
points as to the time or times when this plav was written, it may
be well to add me corresponding passage from the qua/to of 1608 ;

260 HAMLKT, ACT II.

Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did
when I was in the city 7 Are they so followed 7

Ros. No, indeed, they are not.

Ham. How comes it 7 Do they grow rusty 7

Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted
pace : but there is, sir, an aiery of children, little
eyases, that cry out on the top of question,30 and
are most tyrannically clapp'd for't : these are now
the fashion ; and so berattle the common stages, (so
they call them,) that many, wearing rapiers, are
afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come thither.

Ham. What ! are they children 7 who maintains
them 7 how are they escoted 7 31 Will they pursue

" Ham. Players ? what players be they ?

"Ros. My lord, the tragedians of the city; those that you took
delight to see so often.

" Ham. How comes it that they travel T Do they grow restie t

" Guil. No, my lord ; their reputation holds as it was wont.

« Ham. How then ?

" Guil. I 'faith, my lord, novelty carries it away ; for the prin-
cipal public audience that came to them are turned to private
plays, and the humour of children." H.

80 Aiery, from eyren, eggs, properly means a brood, but some-
times a nest. See King Richard III., Act i. sc. 3, note 20. — Eyas
is a name for an unfledged hawk. See The Merry Wives of
Windsor, Act iii. sc. 3, note 2. — "Top of question" probably
means, top of their voice ; question being often used for speech. —
The allusion is to the children of St. Paul's and of the Revels, whose
performing of plays was much in fashion at the time this play was
written. From an early date, the choir-boys of St. Paul's, West-
minster, Windsor, and the Chapel Royal, were engaged in such
performances, and sometimes played at Court. The complaint
here is, that these juveniles so abuse "the common stages," that
is, the theatres, as to deter many from visiting them. In Jack
Drum's Entertainment, 1601, one of the speakers says they were
heard " with much applause ;" and another speaks thus : " I sawe
the children of Powles last night, and, troth, they pleas'd me pret-
tie. prettie well : the apes in time will do it handsomely." H.

" Escoted is paid ; from the French escot, a shot or reckoning.
— Quality is profession or calling ; often so used. — " No longer
than they can sing," means, no longer than they keep the voices
of boys H.

SO. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 201

the quality no longer than they can sing? will they
not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves
to common players, (as it is most like, if their means
are no better,) their writers do them wrong, to make
tnem exclaim against their own succession ?

Ros. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both
Bides ; and the nation holds it no sin, to tarre 3*
them on to controversy : there was, for a while no
money bid for argument, unless the poet and the
player went to cuffs in the question.

Ham. Is it possible?

GniL O ! there has been much throwing about of
brains.

Ham, Do the boys carry it away ?

Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and
IMS load too.33

Ham. It is not very strange : for my uncle is
king of Denmark, and those, that would make
mowes34 at him while my father lived, give twenty,
forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his pic-
ture in little. 'Sblood, there is something in this
more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.
[Flourish of Trumpets within,

Guil. There are the players.

Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore.
Your hands. Come, then ; the appurtenance of
welcome is fashion and ceremony ; let me comply

** That is, set them on ; a phrase borrowed from the setting on
• dog: See King John, Act iv. sc. 1, note 6.

13 That is, carry all the world before them : there is perhaps an
allusion to the Globe theatre, the sign of which is said to have been
Hercules carrying the globe. — This speech and what precede*,
beginning at, " Nay, their endeavour keeps," &c., are found only
in the folio. H.

34 So the folio ; the quartos, mouths ; all but the first, which
has mopi and mots. H.

2G2 HAMLET, ACT II

with you ill this garb ; 35 lest my extent to tlie play-
ers (which, I tell you, must show fairly outward)
should more appear like entertainment than yours.
You are welcome ; but my uncle-father and a int-
mother are deceiv'd.

GuiL In what, my dear lord 1

Ham. I am but mad north-north-west ; when
the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a haauV
«aw.38

Re-enter POLONIUS.

Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen !

Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern ; — and you too,
— at each ear a hearer : that great baby, you see
there, is not yet out of his swath ing-clouts.

Ros. Haply, he's the second time come to them ,
for, they say, an old man is twice a child.

Ham. I will prophesy, he comes to tell me of the
players ; mark it. — You say right, sir : o'Monday
morning ; 'twas then, indeed.

Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you.

Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you : When
Roscius was an actor in Rome, —

Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord.

Ham. Buz, buz!

35 That is, let me embrace you in this fashion ; lest I should
seem to give you a less courteous reception than I give the play-
ers, to whom I must behave with at least exterior politeness. Thai
comply with was sometimes used in the sense of embrace appear*
])j the following from Herrick :

" Witty Ovid, by

Whom fair Corinna sits, and doth comply,
With iv'ry wrists, his laureat head, and steeps
His eye in dew of kisses, while he sleeps."

M " To know a hawk from a handsaw," was a proverb in Shake
gpeare's time. Handsaw is merely a corruption of hernsliaie
which means a heron. H.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 263

Pol. Upon my honour, —

Ham. Then came each actor on his uss, —

Pol. The best actors in the world, either lor
tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical- coiui-
cal-historical-pastoral,37 scene individable, or poem
unlimited : Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Flautua
too light. For the law of writ, and the liberty,
these are the only men.38

Ham. O, Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treas-
ure hadst thou !

Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord 1

Ham. Why —

One fair daughter, and no more,
The which he loved passing well.3*

87 The words, •< tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-
j astoral." are found only in the first quarto and the folio. H.

38 i, The meaning," says Collier, " probably is, that the players
were good, whether at written productions or at extemporal plays,
where liberty was allowed to the performers to invent the dialogue,
in imitation of the Italian commedie alimproviso." In Elizabelh's
time, it was the custom of the students in the Universities to act
Latin plays ; and, as VVarton remarks, it may have been this that
suggested the names of Seneca and Plautus to the Poet. In the
next Act, Hamlet says to Polonius, — " My lord, you play'd once
in the university, you say." H.

39 These lines are from an old ballad, entitled " Jephtha, Judge
of Israel." It was first printed in Percy's Reliques, having beeu
" retrieved from utter oblivion by a lady, who wrote it down from
memory, as she had formerly heard it sung by her father." A
more correct copy has since been discovered, and reprinted in
Evans' Old Ballads, 1810 ; where the first stanza runs thus :

" I have read that many years agoe,
When Jephtha, judge of Israel,
Had one fair daughter and no moe,
Whom he loved passing well ;
As by lot, God wot,
It came to passe, most like it was,
Great warrs there should be,
And who should be the chiefe but he, but he.''

264 HAMLET, ACT JI.

Pol. [Aside.] Still on my daughter.
Ham. Am I not i'the right, old Jephthah ?
Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a
daughter that I love passing well.
Ham. Nay, that follows not.
Pol. What follows, then, my lord 1
Ham. Why,

As by lot, God wot,
And then, you know,

It came to pass, as most like it was, —

The first row of the pious chanson will show you
more ; for look, where my abridgment comes.40

Enter Four or Five Players.

Ye're welcome, masters ; welcome, all. — I am glad
to see thee well : — welcome, good friends. — O,
old friend ! Why, thy face is valanc'd 4I since I saw
thee last : com'st thou to beard me in Denmark ?
— What ! my young lady and mistress ! By-'r-lady,
your ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw
you last, by the altitude of a chopine.4* Tray God,

40 That is, probably, those who will abridge my talk. — " The
pious chmson" is something to be sung or chanted; in the first
quarto it is called "the godly ballad." — "The first row," seeing
to mean " the first column." H.

41 That is, fringed with a beard.

49 A chopine was a kind of high shoe, worn by the Spanish and
Italian ladies, and adopted at one time as a fashion by the Eng-
lish. Coriate describes those worn by the Venetians as some of
them " half a yard high." Bulwer, in his Artificial Changeling,
complains of this fashion, as a monstrous affectation, "wherein
our ladies imitate the Venetian and Persian ladies." Chapin is
the Spanish name ; and Cobarruvias countenances honest Tom
Coriate's account of the preposterous height to which some ladies
carried them. He tells an old tale of their being invented to pre-
vent women's gadding, being first made of wood, and very heavy 5
and ihat the ingenuity of the women overcame this inconvenience

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 265

your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not
crack'd within the ring.43 — Masters, you are all
welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers,4*
fly at any thing we see : We'll have a speech
straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality ;
come, a passionate speech.

1 Play. What speech, my good lord 1
Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, —
but it was never acted ; or, if it was, not above
once : for the play, I remember, pleas'd not the
million ; 'twas caviare to the general : 4S but it
was (as I receiv'd it, and others, whose judgments
in such matters cried in the top of mine) an excel-
lent play ; well digested in the scenes, set down
with as much modesty as cunning. I remember
one said there were no sallets in the lines46 to make
the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase

by substituting cork. Though they are mentioned under the name
of ciojrpini by those who saw them in use in Venice, the diction-
aries record them under the title of zoccoli.

43 The old gold coin was thin and liable to crack. There was
a ring or circle on it, within which the sovereign's head, &.C.. was
placed; if the crack extended beyond this ring, it was rendered
uncurrent : it was therefore a simile applied to any other debased
or injured object. There is some humour in applying it to a
cracked voice.

44 So the folio and the first quarto ; the other quartos have
friendly instead of French. H.

45 Cariare was the pickled roes of certain fish of the sturgeon
kind, called in Italy caniale, and much used there and in other
countries. Great quantities were prepared on the river Volga for-
merly. As a dish of high seasoning and peculiar flavour, it vvas
i.ot relished by the many, that is, the general. A fantastic feliow,
described in Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, is said to be learning to
eat macaroni, periwinkles, French beans, and caviare, and pre-
tending to like them.

46 The force of this phrase will appear by the following from
A Banquet of Jests, 166.5: — " For junkets joci, and for salieii
•ales." •' Sal. Salte, a pleasante and merv word, that makelt
folke to laugh, and sometimes pricketh." — HARKT.

266 HAMLET, ACT IL

that might indict the author of affectation ; 47 hut
oall'd it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet,
and by very much more handsome than fine. One
speech in it I chiefly lov'd : 'twas ^Eneas' tale to
Dido ; and thereabout of it especially, where he
speaks of Priam's slaughter. If it live in your
memory, begin at this line : let me see, let me

Ifift * — ^~

The rugged Pyrrhus, like th' Hyrcanian beast, —
'tis not so ; it begins with Pyrrhus.

The rugged Pyrrhus, — he, whose sable arms,48

Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

When he lay couched in the ominous horse,

Hath now his dread and black complexion smear'd

With heraldry more dismal ; head to foot

Now he is total gules ;49 horridly trick'd

With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons ,

Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,

That lend a tyrannous and a damned light

To their lord's murder : Roasted in wrath and fire,

And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,

With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus

Old grandsire Priam seeks : —

So proceed you.

47 So the folio ; the quartos, affection, which was sometimes
used for affectation. — Indict is im-peach or convict. H.

48 Schlegel observes, that " this speech must not be judged by
itself, but in connexion with the place where it is introduced. To
distinguish it as dramatic poetry in the play itself, it was necessary
that it should rise above the dignified poetry of that in the same
proportion that the theatrical elevation does above simple nature.
Hence Shakespeare has composed the play in Hamlet altogether
in sententious rhymes, full of antithesis. But this solemn and
measured tone did not suit a speech in which violent emotion
ought to prevail ; and the Poet had no other expedient than the
one of which he made use, overcharging the pathos."

49 Gules is red, in the language of heraldry : to trick ii U
nolnur. — The folio Las to take instead of total.

SC. 11. PRINCE OF DENMARK 267

Pol. Tore God, my lord, well spoken ; with
good accent, and good discretion.

1 Play Anon he finds him

Striking too short at Greeks ; his antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command. Unequal match'd,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives ; in rage, strikes wide ;
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
Th' unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base ; and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear : for, lo ! his swoid,
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seem'd i'the air to stick :
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood ;
And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.

But, as we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,*0
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death ; anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region : so, after Pyrrhus' pause,
A roused vengeance sets him new a-work ;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
On Mars's armour, forg'd for proof eterne,
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam. —

Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune ! All you gods,
In general synod, take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the Hll of heaven,
As low as to the fiends ! 5I

50 For the meaning of rack see The Tempest, Act n sc. 1,
LI te 16 ; also, 3 Henry VI., Act ii. sc. 1, note 4. H.

61 To the remarns of Schlegel on this speech should be added
tu jse of Coleridge, a? the two appear to have been a coincidence
of thought, and not A borrowing either way : " This admirable
oUOstitulion of the epic for the dramatic, giving such reality to th*

268 HAMLET, ACT II

Pol. This is too long.

Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your beard. —
'Pr'ythee, say on : — He's for a jig,51 or a tale of
bawdry, or he sleeps. — Say on : come to Hecuba.

1 Play. But who, O! who had seen the mobled*1
queen —

Ham. The mobled queen?

PoL That's good ; mobled queen is good.

1 Play. Run barefoot up and down, threatening the

flames

With bisson rheum ; 84 a clout upon that head,
Where late the diadem stood ; and, for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,
A blanket, in th' alarm of fear caught up ; —
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd
'Gainst fortune's state would treason have pronounc'd

dramatic diction of Shakespeare's own dialogue, and authorized,
too, by the actual style of the tragedies before his time, is well
worthy of notice. The fancy, that a burlesque was intended,
sinks below criticism : the lines, as epic narrative, are superb. —
In the thoughts, and even in the separate parts of the diction, this
description is highly poetical : in truth, taken by itself, that is its
fault, that it is too poetical ! — the language of lyric vehemence
and epic pomp, and not of the drama. But if Shakespeare had
made the diction truly dramatic, where would have been the con-
trast between Hamlet and the play in Hamlet 7 '' H.

** Giga, in Italian, was a fiddle, or crowd ; gigaaro, a fiddlet,
or minstrel. Hence a jig was a ballad, or ditty, sung to the fid-
dle. " Frottola, a countrie gigge, or round, or country song or
wanton verse." As the itinerant minstrels proceeded they made
it a kind of farcical dialogue ; and at length it came to signify a
short merry interlude : " Farce, the jigg at the end of an enter-
lude, wherein some pretie knaverie is acted."

63 Thus the first quarto; the other quartos have a woe instead
of O ! who. The folio agrees with the first quarto, except that it
misprints inobled for mobled. — Mobled is hastily or carelessly
dressed. To mob or mab is still used in the north of England for
to dress in a slatternly manner ; and Coleridge says "moZ>-cap \3
still a word in common use for a morning cap." H.

** Bisson is blind. Bisson rheum is therefore blinding tears
See Coriolanus, Act ii. sc. 1, note 5; and Act iii. sc. 1, note tl.

9C. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 269

But if the gods themselves did see her then,
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs ;
The instant burst of clamour that she made
(Unless things mortal move them not at all)
Would have made milch the burning eye of heaven,68
And passion in the gods.

Pol. Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour,
and has tears in's eyes. — PrN thee, no more.

Ham, 'Tis well ; I'll have thee speak out the rest
of this soon. — Good my lord, will you see the play-
ers well bestow'd ? Do you hear? let them be well
us'd ; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles
of the time : after your death you were better have
a bad epitaph, than their ill report while you live.

Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their
desert.

Ham. Odd's bodikin, man ! much better : Use
every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape
whipping ? Use them after your own honour and
dignity : the less they deserve, the more merit is in
your bounty. Take them in.

Pol. Come, sirs. [Exit, with some of the Players.

Ham. Follow him, friends : we'll hear a play to-
morrow. — Dost thou hear me, old friend 7 can you
play the murder of Gonzago?

1 Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. We'll have't to-morrow night. You could,
for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen
lines, which I would set down, and insert in't, could
you not?

56 By a hardy poetical licence this expression means, " Would
have filled with tears the burning eye of heaven." We have

Lemosus, »»i7c/i-hearted," in Huloet's and Lyttleton's Diction
aries. It is remarkable that, in old Italian, lattuoso is used for
luttuoso, in the same metaphorical 111.1111 er.

270 HAMLET, ACT IL

1 Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Very well. — Follow that lord ; and look
you mock him not. [Exit Player.] — My good
friends [To Ros. and GUIL.] I'll leave you till night:
you are welcome to Elsinore.

Ros. Good my lord !

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' you. — Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I !
Is it not monstrous, that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That, from her working, all his visage wann'd ;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit ? And all for nothing !
For Hecuba !

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,88
That he should weep for her 1 What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue " for passion,
That I have 1 He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech ;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John a-dreams,68 unpregnant of my cause,

M So the folio and first quarto ; the other quartos, "or he to
her," instead of, " or he to Heciiba." H.

§7 That is, the hint or prompt-word, a technical phrase among
players. " A prompter," says Florio, " one who keepes the booke
for the plaiers, and teachetb them, or schollers their kue.''

** This John was proHnbly distinguished as a sleepy, apathetic
fellow, a sort of dreaming or droning simpleton or flunkey. The
only other mention of him that has reached us, is in Armin's Nest
of Ninnies, 1608 : " His name is John, indeed, says the cinniek,
but neither Johu a nods nor lohn a-dreams, yet either, as you take
it." H.

3C. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. '271

And can say nothing; no, not for a kin?,
Upon whose property, and most dear life,
A damn'd defeat was made.69 Am I a coward ?
Who calls me villain ? breaks my pate across ?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face ?
Tweaks me by th' nose ? gives me the lie i'the throat,
As deep as to the lungs 1 Who does me this ?
Ha!

'Zounds ! I should take it ; for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter ; 60 or, ere this,
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain !
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless81 vil-
lain !

O, vengeance !

Why, what an ass am I ? This is most brave ;
That I, the son of the dear murdered,88
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

*" Defeat was frequently used in the sense of undo or take ateaj
by our old writers. Thus Chapman in his Revenge for Honour i
•' That he might meantime make a sure defeat on our good aged
father's life."

60 Of course the meaning is, " lack gall to make me feel the
bitterness of oppression." There were no need of saying this,
but that Collier, on the strength of his second folio, would read
transgression, and Singer, on the strength of nothing, aggression.
Dycc justly pronounces the alteration " nothing less than villain-
ous.'' H.

61 Kindless is unnatural. See The Merchant of Venice, Act i.
sc. 3, note 7.

6* Thus the folio ; some copies of the undated quarto, and the
quarto of 1611, read, <• the son of a dear father murder'd." The
quartos of 1604 and 1605 are without father; and that of 1603
reads, " the son of my dear father." There can be no question
that the reading we have adopted, besides having the most au-
thority, is much the more beautiful and expressive, though modern
editors commonly take the other. — The words, " O, vengeance \ '
are found only in the folio. H.

272 HAMLET, ACT II,

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,

A. id fall a-cursing like a very drab,

A scullion ! Fie upon't ! foh !

About, my brain ! 63 Humph ! I have heard,

That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,

Have by the very cunning of the scene

Been struck so to the soul, that presently

They have proclaim'd their malefactions ; 64

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak

With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players,

Play something like the murder of my father

Before mine uncle : I'll observe his looks ;

I'll tent him to the quick : if he do blench,65

I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

May be a devil : and the devil hath power

T' assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and, perhaps,

Out of my weakness, and rny melancholy,

As he is very potent with such spirits,

Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds

More relative than this : 66 the play's the thing,

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

[Exit.

63 " About, my brain," is nothing more than " to work, my
orain." The phrase, to go about a thing, is still common.

64 Several instances of the kind are collected by Thomas Hey-
wood in his Apology for Actors.

65 To tent was to probe, to search a wound. To blench is to
shrink or start.

66 " More relative " is more correspondent, more conjunctive
with the cause ; that is, more certain. The sense is well explained
by the reading of the first quarto : " I will have sounder proofs."
— That Hamlet was not alone in the suspicion here started, ap-
pears from Sir Thomas Browne's Rftigio Medici: "I believe that
those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wan-
dering souls of men, but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting
and suggesting us unto mischief, hlood. and villainy ; instilling and
stealing into our hearts tnat the blessed spirits are not at rest in
their graves, but wandei -iolicitous of the affairs of the world,

80. L PRINCE OF DENMARK. 273

ACT III.

SCENE I. A Room in the Castle.
Enter the King, the Queen, POI.ONIUS, OPHELIA,

ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King. And can you, by no drift of conference,1
Get from him why he puts on this confusion ;
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy 1

Ros. He does confess, he feels himself distracted ;
But from what cause he will by no means speak.

Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded;
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof,
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

Queen. Did he receive you well 7

Ros. Most like a gentleman.

Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition.

Ros. Niggard of question ; hut, of our demands,
Most free in his reply.

Queen. Did you assay him to any pastime 1

Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
We o'er-raught on the way : 2 of these we told him ;
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it. They are about the court ;3

ISai, that those phantasms appear often, and do frequent ceme-
teries, charnel-houses, and churches, it is because those are the
dormitories of the dead, where the devil, like an insolent cham-
pion, beholds with pride the spoils and trophies of his victory io
Adam." u

1 So the quartos ; the folio, circumstance

* Oer-raught is overtook.

9 Thus the folio ; the quartos. " They are here.1'

274 HAMLET, ACT III

And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

Pol. 'Tis most true :

And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.

King. With all my heart ; and it doth much con-
tent me

To hear him so inclin'd. —
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.

Ros. We shall, my lord.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too :

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither ;
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia : 4

Her father and myself, lawful espials,6
Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behav'd,
If 't be th' affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.

Queen. I shall obey you. —

And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness : so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.

Oph. Madam, I wish it may.

[Exit (juecn.

* That is, meet her, encounter her ; affrontare, Ital. See The
Winter's Tale, Act v. sc. 1, note 5.

8 That is, lawful spies. " An espiall in warres, a seoutwatche
a beholder, a viewer." — BARET. — The two words are found onlj
in the folio.

bC. L PHINCE OF DKNMARK. 275

Pol Ophelia, walk you here. — Gracious, so

please you,
We will bestow ourselves. — [ To OPHE.] Read on

this book ;

That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness. — We are oft to blarne in ihis, —
"Pis too much prov'd, — that, with devotion's visage,
And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.

King. O, 'tis too true ! —

[Aside.] How smart a lash that speech doth give

my conscience !

The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
Than is my deed to my most painted word :
O, heavy burden !

Pol. I near him coming : let's withdraw, my lord.
[Exeunt King and POLONIUS.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question .
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them ? — To die, — to

sleep, —

No more ; — and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, — to sleep ; —
To sleep ! perchance, to dream ; — ay, there's the

rub ;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,*

' That is, tbe tumult and bustle of this life. It is remarkable

276 HAMLET, ACT III

Must give us pause. There's the respect '

That makes calamity of so long life •

For who would bear the whips and scoms of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The j>angs of dispriz'd love,9 the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin ? who'd these fardels bear.

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death —

The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns — puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought ,

that under garbuglio, which has the same meaning in Italian as
our coil, Florio has "a pecke of troubles;" of which Shake-
speare's " sea of troubles " is only an aggrandized idea.

7 That is, the consideration. This is Shakespeare's most usual
sense of the word.

8 Time, for the time, is a very usual expression with our old
writers. In Cardanus Comfort, by Thomas Bedingfield, 1599, is
a description of the miseries of life strongly resembling that in the
text : " Hunger, thirste, sleape, not plentiful or quiet as deade men
have, heate in somer, colde in winter, disorder of tyme, terroure
of warres, controlment of parents, cares of wedlocke, studye for
children, slouthe of servaunts, contention of sutes. and that which
is most of all, the cindycyon of tyme wherein honestye is disdaywd
as folye, and crafte is honoured as wisdome."

' Thus the folio 5 the quartos have despis'd instead of dispriz'd.

H.

10 The allusion is to the term quietus est, used in settling ac-
counts at exchequer audits. Thus in Sir Thomas Overbury's
character of a Franklin : " Lastly, to end him, he cares not when
his end comes ; he needs not feare his audit, for his quietus is in
heaven." Bodkin was the ancient term for a small dagger.

SC. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 277

And enterprises of great pith and moment,11
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. — Soft you, now !
The fair Ophelia. — Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.1*

Oph. Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

Ham. I humbly thank you ; well, well, well.1*

Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours.
That I have longed long to re-deli ver ;
I pray you, now receive them.

Ham. No, not 1 ;

I never gave you aught.

Oph. My honour'd lord, I know right well you

did;14

And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd
As made the things more rich : their perfume lost.
Take these again ; for, to the noble mind,
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.

Ham. Ha, ha ! are you honest 1

Oph. My lord !
Ham. Are you fair ? IS

11 The quartos have pitch instead of pith. The folio misprints
weay far awry, in the next line. In the third line before, the words,
"of us all." are from the folio. H.

'* This is a touch of nature. Hamlet, at the sight of Ophelia,
does not immediately recollect that he is to personate madness,
but makes an address grave and solemn, such as the foregoing
meditation excited in bis thoughts. — JOHNSON.

13 Thus the folio ; the quartos have well but once. The repe-
tition seems very apt and forcible, as suggesting the opposite of
what the word means. H.

14 The quartos have " you know " instead of " 7 know." We
scarce know which to prefer ; but, on the whole, the folio reading
.seems to have more of delicacy, and at least equal feeling.

B.

15 Here it is evident that the penetrating Hamlet perceives, froc

278 HAMLKT, ACT III

Op/i. What means your lordship ?

Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your hon
esty should admit no discourse to your beauty."

Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better com
merce than with honesty ?

Ham. Ay, truly ; for the power of beauty will
sooner transform honesty from what it ia to a bawd,
lhan the force of honesty can translate beaut> into
his likeness : this was sometime a paradox, but now
the time jfives k proof. I did love you once.

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so,

Ham. You should not have believed me ; for vir-
tue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall
relish of it. I loved you not.

Oph. I was the more deceived.17

Ham. Get thee to a nunnery : why wnuld'st

flje strange and forced manner of Ophelia, that the sweet girl was
not acting a part of her own, but was a decoy ; and his after
speeches are not so much directed to her as to the listeners and
•pies. Such a discovery in a mood so anxious and irritable ac-
counts for a certain harshness in him ; — and yet a wild up-work-
ing of love, sporting with oppositea in a wilful self-tormenting strain
of irony, is perceptible throughout. « I did love you once," —
"I loved you not:" — and particularly in his enumeration of the
faults of the sex from which Ophelia is so free, that the mere free-
dom therefrom constitutes her character. Note Shakespeare's
charm of composing the female character by absence of charac-
ters, that is, marks and oui-juttings. — COLERIDGE. H.

" That is, '• your honesty should not admit your beauty to any
discourse with it." — The quartos have merely you instead of yoiir
honesty. — In the next speech, the folio substitutes your for with.
— It should be noted, that in these speeches Hamlet refers, not to
Ophe.ia personally, but to the sex in general. So. especially, when
he says, " I have heard of your paintings too," he does not mean
that Ophelia paints, but that the use of paintings is common with
her sex. H.

1T Mrs. Jameson, speaking of this and the preceding speech ol
Ophelia, says. — " Those who have ever heard Mrs. Siddons read
the play of Hamlet cannot forget the world of meaning, of love
of sorrow, of despair, conveyed in these two simple phrases."

H.

SC. I PRINCE OF DENMARK. 279

thou lie a breeder of sinners ? I am myself indif-
ferent honest ; but yet I could accuse me of such
things, that it were better my mother had not
borne me : I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious ;
with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts
to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or
time to act them in. What should such fellows as
1 do crawling between heaven and earth ? We are
arrant knaves, all ; believe none of us : Go thy ways
to a nunnery. Where's your father ?

Oph, At home, my lord.

Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him ; that he
may play the fool no where but ill's own house.
Farewell.

Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens !

Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this
plague for thy dowry : Be thou as chaste as ice, as
pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get
thee to a nunnery ; farewell : Or, if thou wilt needs
marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery,
go; and quickly too. Farewell.

Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him !

Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well
enough ; God hath given you one face,18 and you
make yourselves another : you jig, you amble, and
you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make
your wantonness your ignorance.19 -Go to; I'll no
more on't : it hath made me mad. I say, we will
have no more marriages : those that are married

IS The folio, for paintings, has pratlingt ; and tot fact has pace.
Too is from the folio.

18 " You mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to mistaka
by ignorance."

280 HAMLET, ACT (U

already, all but one, shall live ; the rest shall keej,
as they are. To a nunnery, go.20 [Exit

Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown !
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword
Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,*1
Th' observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down '
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune aud harsh ;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstacy.22 O, woe is me !
To have seen what 1 have seen, see what I see !

Re-enter the King and POLONIUS.

King. Love ! his affections do not that way tend :
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his

soul,

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood ;
And, I do doubt, the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
I have, in quick determination,
Thus set it down : He shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute :

80 Observe this dallying with the inward purpose, characteristic
of one who had not brought his mind to the steady acting-print.
He wsuld fain sting the uncle's mind ; — but to stab his body! —
The soliloquy of Ophelia, which follows, is the perfection of love,
— so exquisitely unselfish ! — COLERIDGE.

91 Tn3 model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves.
The quartos have expectation instead of expectancy.

22 Ecstacy was often used for insanity or any alienation of
mind. See The Tempest, Act iii. sc. 3, note 12. — The quartos
have ttature instead of feature, and " what noble " for " that
noble " H.

SC. n. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 281

Haply, the seas, and countries different,

With variahle objects, shall expel

This something-settled matter in his heart ;

Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus

From fashion of himself. What think you on't t

Pol. It shall do well : but yet do I believe,
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. — How now, Ophelia
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said ;
We heard it all. — My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone intreat him
To show his griefs ; let her be round with him;8'
And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him ; or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.

King. It shall be so :

Madness in great ones must 'not unwatch'd go.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. A Hall in the Same.

Enter HAMLET, and certain Players.

Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pro-
nounc'd it to you, trippingly on the tongue ; but if
you mouth it, as many of your players do,1 I had aa
lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not

° To be round with any one, is to be plain-tpcicn, downright ;
often so used. H.

1 Thus the folio and first quarto ; the other quartos have out
instead of your. — For, " 1 had as lief the town crier spoke," the
first quarto reads, " I had rather hear a town bull bellow." —
" This dialogue of Hamlet with the players," says Coleridge, " if
one of the happiest instances of Shakespeare's power of diverai
fyiny the scene while he is carrying on the plot." H

282 HAMLET, ACT III

saw the air too much with your hand, thus ; hut use
all gently : for in the very torrent, tempest, and, ad
I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must
acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it
smoothness. O ! it offends me to the soul, to hear
a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to
tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the ground-
lings ; 2 who, for the most part, are capable of
nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise :
1 would have such a fellow whipp'd for o'er-doing
Termagant ; it out-herods Herod :3 pray you, avoid
it.

1 Play. I warrant your honour.

Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own
discretion be your tutor : suit the action to the
word, the word to the action ; with this special
observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of
nature : for any thing so overdone is from the pur-
pose of playing, whose end, both at the first and
now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirrour up

* Our ancient theatres were far from the commodious, elegant
structures which later times have seen. The pit was, truly, what
its name denotes, an unfloored space in the area of the house
sunk considerably beneath the level of the stage. Hence this part
of the audience were called groundlings. Jonson, in the Induc-
tion to Bartholomew Fair, calls them " the understanding gentle-
men of the ground ; " and Shirley, " grave understanders."

3 Termagaunt is the name given in old romances to the tem-
pestuous god of the Saracens. He is usually joined with Mahound
or Mahomet. Davenant derives the name from ter magnus. And
resolute John Florio calls him " Termigisto. a great boaster,
quarreller, killer, tamer or ruler of the universe ; the child of the
earthquake and of the thunder, the brother of death." Hence
this personage was introduced into the old mysteries and morali-
• ties as a demon of outrageous and violent demeanour ; or, as Bale
says, " Termagaunles altogether, and very devils incarnate." —
The murder of the innocents was a favourite subject for a mys-
tery ; and wherever Herod is introduced, he plays the part of a
vaunting braggart, a tyrant of tyrants, and does indeed ouiJo Ter

SC II. PR1MCE OF DENMARK. 283

to nature ; to show virtue her own feature, scorn
her own image, and the very age and body of the
time, his form and pressure.4 Now, this overdone,
or come tardy oft", though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve ; the
/ensure of which one must, in your allowance,6
o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O ! there be
players, that I have seen play, — and heard others
praise, and that highly, — not to speak it profanely,
that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor
the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some
of nature's journeymen had made men,6 and not
made them well, they imitated humanity so abomi
nably.

1 Play. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently
with us.

Ham. O ! reform it altogether. And let those
that play your clowns speak no more than is set
down for them : for there be of them, that will
themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren
spectators to laugh too ; though in the mean time
some necessary question of the play be then to be
considered : that's villainous, and shows a most
pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make
you ready. — [Exeunt Players*

4 Pressure is impression, resemblance.

6 That is, approval, estimation.

* A friend suggests whether men should not have the before it,
or else be them. This would give a very different sense, limiting
it from men in general to the particular players in question. Per-
haps it may be doubted whether Hamlet means that he had thought
the players themselves to be the second-hand workmanship of na-
ture, from their imitating humanity so falsely, or whether he had
taken their imitation as true, and so extended his thought of second-
nand workmanship over all mankind. However, our best road to
what he means, is by what he says, probably. Mi lone would read
them H.

284 HAMLET, ACT I1L

Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GITILDEN-

STERN.

How now, my lord ! will the king hear this piece
of work ?

Pol. And the queen too, and that presently.
Ham. Bid the players make haste. —

\Exit POLONICS-

Will you two help to hasten them ?
Both. We will, my lord.7

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GDILDENSTERM,
Ham. What, ho ! Horatio !

Enter HORATIO.

Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service.

Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.

Hor. O! my dear lord, —

Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter;

For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits,
To feed and clothe thee 1 Why should the poor be

flatter'd ?

No ; let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp.
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,8
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear t
Since my dear soul was mistress ..f her choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself:9 for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing ;

7 So the folio; the quartos, " Ros. Ay. my lord." H.

8 Pregnant is quick, read}-.

* Thus the folio ; the quartos make election the object of dit
tingvish, and use She as llie subject of hath seal'tl. — In the foiirtli
line after, the quartos have co-meddled instead of co-mingled.

u

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 285

A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards

Hast ta'en witli equal thanks : and blest are those,

Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled,

That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger

To sound what stop she please. Give me that

man

That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. — Something too much of this. —
There is a play to-night before the king ;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance,
Which I have told thee, of my father's death.
I pr'ythee, when thou seest that act a-foot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul10
Observe my uncle : if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen ;
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy.11 Give him heedful note:
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face ;
And, after, we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

Hor. Well, my lord :

If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Ham. They are coming to the play : I must be

idle ;
Get you a place.

19 That is, with the most intense direction of every faculty.
The folio has " my son!," which Knight and Collier strangely pre-
fer, on the ground that '• Hamlet is putting Horatio in his place,
for the purpose of watching the king." One would think that Ham'
let, though he " must be idle," that is, appear so, means to stand
in his own place, fnr that purpose ; else why should he say, — "I
mine nyes will rivet to his face ? " H.

11 That is. Vulcan's workshop or smithy ; stitli being an antii

286 HAMLET, ACT III.

Danish March. A Flourish. Enter the King, the
Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ,
GUILDENSTERN, and Others.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet ?

Ham. Excellent, i'faith; of the chameleon's dish;
I cat the air, promise-cramm'd. You cannot feed
capons so.

King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet ;
these words are not mine.

Ham. No, nor mine now. — [ToPoLON.] My lord,
you play'd once i'the university, you say?

Pol. That did I, my lord ; and was accounted a
good actor.

Ham. And what did you enact ?

Pol. I did enact Julius Csesar : I was kill'd i'the
Capitol ; Brutus kill'd me.1*

Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill so cap-
.tal a calf there. — Be the players ready?

Ros. Ay, my lord ; they stay upon your patience.11

Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more at-
tractive.

Pol. [ To the King.'] O ho ! do you mark that ?

Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap ?

[Lying down at OPHELIA'S Feet.

Oph. No, my lord.

'* A Latin play on Caesar's death was performed at Christ
Church, Oxford, in 1582. Malone thinks that there was an Eng-
lita play on the same subject previous to Shakespeare's. Caesar
was killed in Pompey's portico, and not in the Capitol : but the
error is at least as old as Chaucer's time.

13 That is, they wait upon your sufferance or will. Johnson
would have changed the word to pleasure ; but Shakespeare has
it in a similar sense in The Two Gentlemen cf Verona, Act iii. sc.
1 : " And think my patience, more than thy desert is privilege for
fhv departure hence."

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 287

Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?14

Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters ?

Oph. I think nothing, my lord.

Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maid*
legs.

Oph. What is, my lord ?

Ham. Nothing.

Oph. You are merry, my lord.

Ham. Who, I ?

Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. O God ! your only jig-rnaker.15 What
should a man do, but be merry 1 for, look you, how
cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died
within these two hours.

Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

Ham. So long 1 Nay, then let the devil wear
black, 'fore I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens !
die two months ago, and not forgotten yet 1 Then
there's hope, a great man's memory may outlive
his life half a year: But, by'r-lady, he must build
churches then, or else shall he suffer not thinking
on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, "For,
O ! for, O ! the hobby-horse is forgot." 17

14 This question and the answer to it are only in the folio.

H.

16 See Act ii. sc. 2, note 51.

16 Hanmer would read ermine, on the ground that sable is itself
a mourning colour. But sables were among the most rich and
costly articles of dress ; and a statute of the reign of Henry VIII.
made it unlawful for any one under the rank of an earl to wear
them. The meaning is well explained by Knight, thus : " If Ham-
let had said, < Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a
luit of ermine,' he would merely have said, ' Let the devil be in
mourning, for I'll be fine.' But, as it is, he says, ' Let the devil
wear the real colours of grief, but I'll be magnificent in a gart
that only has a facing of something like grief.' " H.

7 Alluding to the expulsion of the hobby-horse from the May

288 HAMLET, ACT in

Trumpets sound. The Dumb Show enters.
Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly ; the Queen em-
bracing him. She kneels, and makes show of protestation
unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon
her neck ; lays him down upon a bank ofjlowers : she,
seeing him asleep, leaves him. Jlnon comes in a Fellow,
takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the
King's ears, and exit. The, Queen returns, finds the
King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner,
with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to
lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The
Poisoner ivoos the Queen with gifts : she seems loth and
unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love.

[Exeunt

Oph. What means this, my lord 1

Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho ; it means
mischief.18

Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of
the play.

Enter Prologue.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow : the players
cannot keep counsel ; they'll tell all.

Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant ?

Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him : Be
not you asham'd to show, he'll not shame to tell you
what it means.

Oph. You are naught, you are naught : I'll mark
the play.

pames, where he had long been a favourite. See Love's Labour's
Lost, Act iii. sc. I, note 6. H.

18 Miching mallecho is lurking mischief, or evil doing. To mich
for to skulk, to lurk, was an old English verb in common use in
Shakespeare's time ; and mallecho or malhecho, misdeed, be hi*
borrowed from the Spanish.

8C. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 289

Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency
We beg your hearing patiently.

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring 1
Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord,
Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a King and a Queen.

King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone rouna
Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground ;
And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen,
About the world have times twelve thirties been;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er, ere love be done !
But, woe is me ! you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer, and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must :
For women's fear and love hold quantity ; 2o
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know ,
And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear •
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.21

King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too ;
My operant powers their functions leave to do :

19 Cart, car, and chariot were used indiscriminately. — " The
stye," says Coleridge, " of the interlude here is distinguished from
the real dialogue by rhyme, as in the first interview with the play-
ers by epic verse." H.

80 So the folio; the quartos have a different reading, giving tw<
lines for one :

" For women fear too much, even as they tore ;
And women's fear and love hold quantity." H.

81 The last two lines of this speech are not in the folio. H

290 HAMLET, ACT II)

And thou shalt live in this fair world beh.nd,
Honour'd, belov'd ; and, haply, one ;is kind
For husband shalt thou —

Queen. O, confound the rest!

Such love mnst needs be treason in my breast:
tn second husband let me be accurst !
None wed the second, but who kill'd the first

Ham. [Aside.] That's wormwood.

Queen. The instances, that second marriage move,
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.

King. I do believe you think what now you speak ,
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity ;
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis, that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt :
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures M with themselves destroy :
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament ;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident
This world is not for aye ; nor 'tis not strange,
That even our loves should with our fortunes change,*
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies 5
The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies :
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend ;
For who not needs, shall never lack a friend ;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.*3

n That is, their own determinations, what they enact.

88 Season was very commonly used in the sense of to temper

SC. H. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 2D

But, orderly to end where I begun, —

Our wills and fates do so contrary run,

That our devices still are overthrown ;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own :

So think thou wilt no second husband wed ;

But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead.

Queen. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light'.
Sport and repose lock from me, day and night !
To desperation turn my trust and hope !
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope ! M
Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy !
Both here, and hence, pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife !

Ham. [To OPHE.] If she should break it now,

King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep. [Sleeps.

Queen. Sleep rock thy brain ;

And never come mischance between us twain ! [Exit.

Ham. Madam, how like you this play 1

Queen. The lady doth protest too much, me-
thinks.

Ham. O ! but she'll keep her word.

King. Have you heard the argument ? Is there
no offence in't 1

Ham. No, no ; they do but jest, poison in jest :
no offence i'the world.

King. What do you call the play ?

Ham. The mouse-trap. Marry, how ? Tropical-
ly. This play is the image of a murder done in

as before in this play : " Season your admiration for a while." See
also, Act i. sc. 3, note 14. 11.

M Anchor's for anchoret's. Thus in Hall's second Satire :

" Kit seven years pining in an anchor's cheyre,
To win some patched shreds of ininiverc."

292 HAMLET, ACT lit

Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name;85 his wife,
Baptistfi. You shall see anon : 'tis a knavish piece
of work ; but what of that ? your majesty, and we
that have free souls, it touches us not : Let the
gall'd jade wince, our withers are unwrung. —

Enter LDCIANUS.
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.2*

Ham. I could interpret between you and your
love, if I could see the puppets dallying.

Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

Ham. It would cost you a groaning, to take off
my edge.

Oph. Still better, and worse.

Ham. So you must take your husbands.27 — Be-
gin, murderer : leave thy damnable faces, and begin.
Come : — The croaking raven both bellow for re-
yenge.

Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time

agreeing ;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing ;

** All the old copies read thus. Yet in the dumb show we have,
« Enter a King and Queen ; " and at the end of this speech. " Lu-
cianus, nephew to the king." This seeming inconsistency, how-
ever, may be reconciled. Though the interlude is the image of
the murder of the duke of Vienna, or in other words founded upon
that story, the Poet might make the principal person in his fable
a king. Baptista is always the name of a man.

** The use to which Shakespeare put the chorus may be seen
iii King Henry V. Every motion or puppet-show was accompa-
nied oy an interpreter or showman.

17 Alluding, most likely, to the language of the Marriage ser-
vice : " To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for
worst, for richer, for poorer," &.C. — All the old copies, but the
first quarto, have mistake ; which Theobald conjectured should be
must take, before any authority for it was known. H.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 293

Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,28
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.

[Pour* the Poison into the Sleeper's Ears.

Ham. He poisons him i'the garden for his estate.
His name's Gonzago : the story is extant, and writ-
ten in very choice Italian. You shall see anon, how
the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

Oph. The king rises.

Ham. What ! frighted with false fire 1 *'

Queen. How fares my lord 7

Pol. Give o'er the play.

King. Give me some light ! — away !

All. Lights, lights, lights ! so

[Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO.

Ham. Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play ;

For some must watch, while some must sleep :

Thus runs the world away. —

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, (if the
rest of my fortunes turn Turk31 with me,) with two
Provincial roses on my rac'd shoes, get me a fellow-
ship in a cry of players, sir 1 3*

18 That is, weeds collected at midnight ; as in Macbeth : "Roct
of hemlock, digg'd i'the dark." H.

w This speech is found only in the folio and the quarto of 1603.

H.

" In the quartos, this speech is given to Polonius. H.

11 To turn Turk was a familiar phrase for any violent change
of condition or character.

34 Mr. Douce has shown that the Provincial roses took their
name from Prmrins, in Lower Brie, and not from Provence. Rac'd
•hoes are most probably embroidered shoes. The quartos read,
raz'd. To race, or rase, was to stripe. So in Markham's County
Farm, speaking of wafer cakes: "Baking all together between
Iwo irons, having within them many raced and checkered draughts
after the manner of small squares." — It was usual to call a. pact

29 1 HAMLET, ACT HI

Hor. Half a share."
Ham. A whole one, I.

For thou dost know, O Damon dear !

This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here

A very, very — peacock.34
Hor. You might have-rhym'd.
Ham. O, good Horatio ! I'll take the ghost's word
for a thousand pound. Didst perceive ?
Hor. Very well, my lord.
Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning, —
Hor. I did very well note him.
Ham. Ah, ha ! — Come ; some music ! come ; the
recorders !3S —

For if the king like not the comedy,

Why then, belike, — he likes it not, perdy.38 —

of hounds a cry ; from the French meute de chiens . it is here hu-
mourously applied to a troop or company of players. It is used
again in Coriolanus : Menenius says to the citizens, " You have
made good work, you and your cry."

33 The players were paid not by salaries, but by shares or por
lions of the profit, according to merit.

34 The old copies have paiock and paiocke. There being no
such word known, Pope changed it to peacock ; which is probably
right, the allusion being, perhaps, to the fable of the crow that
decked itself with peacock's feathers. Or the meaning may be
the same as explained by Florio, thus : " Pavoneggiare, to court
it, to brave it, to peacockise it, to wantonise it, to gel up and down
fondly, gazing upon himself as a peacock does." Mr. Blakeway,
however, suggests puttock, a base degenerate hawk, which is con-
trasted with the eagle in Cymbeline, Act i. sc. 2 : " I chose an eagle,
and did avoid a puttock.'' H

35 See A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act v. sc. 1, note 11. It
is difficult to settle exactly the form of this instrument : old writers
in general make no distinction between a flute, a pipe, and a re-
corder; but Hawkins has shown clearly, from a passage in lord
Bacon's Natural History, that the flute and the recorder were dis-
tinct instruments.

18 Perdy it a corruption of the French par Dieu.

bC. ir. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 295

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Come ; some music !

Guil. (rood my lord, vouchsafe me a word with
you.

Ham. Sir, a whole history.

Guil. The king, sir, —

Ham. Ay, sir, what of him 1

GuiL — is in his retirement marvellous distem-
per'd.

Ham. With drink, sir ?

Guil. No, my lord, with choler.

Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more
richer, to signify this to his doctor ; for, for me to
put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge
him into more choler.

Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into
some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

Ham. I am tame, sir : — pronounce.

Guil. The queen your mother, in most great af-
fliction of spirit, hath sent rne to you.

Ham. You are welcome.

Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of
the right breed. If it shall please you to make me
a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's com-
mandment ; if not, your pardon, and my return shall
be the end of my business.

Ham. Sir, I cannot.

GuiL What, my lord ?

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer ; my wit's
diseas'd : But, sir, such answer as I can make, you
shall command ; or, rather, as you say, my mother;
therefore no more, but to the matter : My mother,
you say, —

296 HAMLET, ACT III

Ron. Then, thus she says : Your behaviour hath
struck her into amazement and admiration.

Ham. O, wonderful son, that can so astonisti a
mother ! — But is there no sequel at the heels of
this mother's admiration? impart.

Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet,
ere you go to bed.

Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our
mother. Have you any further trade with us 1

Ros. My lord, you once did love me.

Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.37

Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of dis-
temper? you do, surely, but bar the door upon
your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your
friend.

Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.

Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice
of the king himself for your succession in Den-
mark ?

Ham. Ay, sir, but, "While the grass grows," —
The proverb is something musty. —

Enter the Players, with Recorders.

O, the recorders ! — let me see one. — To withdraw
with you:38 — why do you go about to recover the
mud of me, as if you would drive me into a toil ? 3J

37 This is explained by a clause in the Church Catechism : " To
keep my hands from picking and stealing." — The quartos have
"And do still." instead of " So /do still." The latter reading
gives a very different sense, and one of our reasons for preferring
it is thus stated by Coleridge : " I never heard an actor give this
word 'so' its proper emphasis. Shakespeare's meaning is, —
< Lov'd you ? Hum ! so I do still.' There has been no change in
my opinion : I think as ill of you as I did." H.

38 To withdraw, it is said, is sometimes used' as a hunting term,
meaning to draw back, to leave the scent or trail. H.

M " To recover the wind of me " is a term borrowed from hunt

5C. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 297

Guil. O, my lord ! if my duty be too bold, my
love is too unmannerly.'*0

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you
play upon this pipe ?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.

Ham. I do beseech you.

Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord.

Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying : govern these vent-
ages with your finger and thumb,41 give it breath
with your mouth, and it will discourse most elo-
quent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guil. But these cannot I command to any utter-
ance of harmony : I have not the skill.

Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a
thing you make of me. You would play upon me ;
you would seem to know my stops ; you would
pluck out the heart of my mystery ; you would
sound me from my lowest note to the top of my
compass : and there is much music, excellent voice,
in this little organ ; yet cannot you make it speak.
'Sblood ! do you think I am easier to be play'd
on than a pipe 7 Call me what instrument you

ing, and means, to take advantage of the animal pursued, by get
ting to the windward of it, that it may not scent its pursuers.
'• Observe how the wind is, that you may set the net so as the hare
tnd wind may come together ; if the wind be sideways it may do
well enough, but never if it blow over the net into the hare's face,
for he will scent both it and you at a distance." — Gentleman's
Recreation.

4U Hamlet may say with propriety, " I do not well understand
that." Perhaps Guildenstern means, " If my duty to the king
makes me too bold, my love to you makes me importunate even
lo rudeness."

41 The ventages are the holes of thf pipe. The stops means
tee mode of stopping those ventages to produce notes.

298 HAMLET, ACT III

will, though you can fret me,4* you cannot play
upon me. —

Enter PoLONius.

God bless you, sir !

Pol. My lord, the queen would speak with you
and presently.

Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in
shape of a camel?

Pol. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.

Ham. Methinks, it is like a weasel.

Pol. It is back'd like a weasel.

Ham. Or, like a whale ?

Pol. Very like a whale.

Ham. Then, will I come to my mother by and
by. — They fool me to the top of my bent. — I will
come by and by.

Pol. I will say so. [Exit.

Ham. By and by is easily said. — Leave me,
friends. — [Exeunt all but HAMLET.

'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When church-yards yawn, and hell itself breathes

out
Contagion to this world : now could I drink hot

blood,

And do such bitter business as the day43
Would quake to look on. Soft ! now to my

mother. —
O, heart! lose not thy nature ; let not ever

42 Hamlet keeps up the allusion to a musical instrument. Th«
/rets of a lute or guitar are the ridges crossing the finger-board,
upon which the strings are pressed or stopped. Of course a quib-
ble is intended on fret. . H.

43 Thus the folio ; the quartos read, " such business as the bit-
ter day." In the second line before, the quartos have brenkt in-
stead of breathes. H.

SC. 111. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 299

The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom :

Let me be cruel, not unnatural.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none ;

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites :

How in my words soever she be shent,44

To give them seals never, my soul, consent ! [Exit.

SCENE III. A Room in the Same.

Enter the King, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDEN-
STERN.

King. I like him not ; nor stands it safe with us,
To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you:
I your commission will forthwith despatch,
And he to England shall along with you.
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so dangerous, as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.1

Guil. We will ourselves provide.

Most holy and religious fear it is,
To keep those many many bodies safe,
That live, and feed, upon your majesty.

Ros. The single arid peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance ; but much more
That spirit, upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone ; but like a gulf doth draw

44 To shend is to injure, whether by reproof, blows, or other-
wise. Shakespeare generally uses shent for reproved, threatened
with angry words. "To give his words seals" is therefore to
carry his punishment beyond reproof. The allusion is the sealing
a deed to render it effective.

1 So the folio ; the quartos read "so near us '' instead of " s«
dangerous," and brows instead of lunacies. u

300 HAMLET, ACT IJl

What's near it with it : it is a massy wheel,
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd : which when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

King. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voy

age;

For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.

Ros. ChiiL We will haste us. [Exeunt,

Enter POLONIUS.

PoL My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.
Behind the arras I'll convey myself,
To hear the process : I'll warrant, she'll tax him

home ;

And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech of vantage.2 Fare you well, my liege :
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.

King. Thanks, dear my lord. —

[Exit POLONIUS.

O ! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven ;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
A brother's murder ! — Pray can I not :
Though inclination be as sharp as will, *
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent ;

* " Speech of vantage " probably means " speech having the
advantage of a mother's partiality." H.

* That is, " though I were not only will'ng, but strongly inclined
to pray, my guilt would prevent me."

SC. III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 301

And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood ?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens,
To wash it white as snow ? Whereto serves m«rcy
But to confront the visage of offence ?
And what's in prayer, but this two-fold force,—
To be forestalled, ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd, being down 1 Then, I'll look up ;
My fault is past. But, O ! what form of prayer
Can serve my turn ? Forgive me my foul murder? — •
That cannot be ; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen-
May one be pardon'd, and retain th' offence ?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice ;
And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law : but 'tis not so above ;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature ; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then ? what rests ?
Try what repentance can ? What can it not 1
Yet what can it, when one can not repent 1
O, wretched state ! O bosom, black as death !
O, limed soul ! 4 that, struggling to be free,
Art more engag'd. Help, angels ! make assay :
Bo\v stubborn knees ; and, heart, with strings of

steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe :
All may be well ! 6 [Retires and kneels*

4 That is, caught as with birdlime. See 2 Henry VI., Act i
gc. 3, note 6.

* This speech well marks the difference between crime and

302 HAMLET, ACT III

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying
And now I'll do't : — and so he goes to heaven ;
And so am I reveng'd 1 That would be scann'd:*
A villain kills my father ; and, for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.7
He took my father grossly, full of bread ;
With all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May ,
And how his audit stands, who knows, save Heaven 1
But, in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him : and am I, then, reveng'd,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage ?
No.
Up, sword ; and know thou a more horrid hent :

guilt of habit. The conscience here is still admitted to audience.
Nay, even as an audible soliloquy, it is far less improbable than is
supposed by such as have watched men only in the beaten road
of their feelings. But the final — " All may be well ! " is remark-
able ; — the degree of merit attributed by the self-flattering soul to
its own struggles, though baffled, and to the indefinite half prom-
ise, half command, to persevere in religious duties. — COLE-
RIDGE. H.

6 That requires consideration. — In the first line of tnis speech,
the quartos read " but now 'a is a praying," instead of "pat, now
he is praying." And in the fifth line, the folio has foul instead of
sole. H.

7 Thus the folio ; the quartos have " base and silly " instead of
" hire and salary." H.

8 That is, more horrid seizure, grasp, or hold. Hent was often
used as a verb in the same sense. See The Winter's Tale, Act
iv. sc. 2, note 19. — Dr. Johnson and others have exclaimed against
what Hamlet here says, as showing a thorough-paced and unmit-
igable fiendishness of spirit. Coleridge much more justly regards
the motives assigned for sparing the king, as "the marks of re-
luctance and procrast. nation." At all events, that they are not
Hamlet's «-ea/ motives, is evident from their very extravagance

SC. III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 303

When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage ;
Or in th' incestuous pleasures of his bed ;
At gaming, swearing ; or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't :
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven;
And that his soul may be as damn'd, and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays :
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. [Exit*

The King rises and advances.

King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain

below :
Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go.

[Exit.

SCENE IV. Another Room m the Same.

Enter the Queen and POLONIUS.

Pol. He will come straight. Look, you lay home

to him ;
Tell him, his pranks have been too broad to bear

with ;

And that your grace hath screen'd and stood be-
tween

Much heat and him. I'll silence me e'en here.
Pray you, be round with him.
Ham. [Within.] Mother, mother, mother I1

With the full conviction that he ought to kill the king, he joins a
deep instinctive moral repugnance to the deed : and he here flies
off to an ideal revenge, in order to quiet his filial feelings without
violating his conscience ; effecting a compromise between them,
by adjourning a purpose which, as a man, he dare not execute,
nor, as a son. abandon. He afterwards asks Horatio, — " Is't not
perfect conscience, to quit him with this arm ? " which confirms tho
view here taken, as it shows that even then his mind was not at
rest on that score. •>

' This speech is found only in the folio. B

1*04 HAMLET, ACT III

Queen. I'll warrant you ;

Fear me not : — withdraw ; I hear him coming.

[POLONIUS hides himself.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Now, mother ! what's the matter ?
Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much ot

fended.

Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen. Come, come ; you answer with an idle

tongue.
Mean. Go, go ; you question with a wicked

tongue.

Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet !
Ham. What's the matter now 1

Queen. Have you forgot me 1
Ham. No, by the rood, not so ;

You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife ;
And — would it were not so ! — you are my mother.
Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can

speak.
Ham. Come, come, and sit you down ; you shall

not budge :

You go not, till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Queen. What wilt thou do ? thou wilt not miu-

der me ?
Help, help, ho !

Pol. [Behind.] What, ho ! help ! help ! help !
Ham. [Drawing.] How now ! a rat ] Dead, for
a ducat, dead.

[HAMLET makes a pass through the Arras.
Pol. [ Behind.] O ! I am slain. [Falls, and dies.
Queen. O me ! what hast thou done 1

SC. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 305

Ham. Nay, I know not : Is it the king ?

[He lifts up the Arras, and draws forth

POLONIUS.

Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this !

Ham. A bloody deed ; almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Queen. As kill a king ?

Ham. Ay, lady, 'twas my word. —

[To POLON.] Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool,

farewell !

I took thee for thy better ; take thy fortune :
Thou find'st, to be too busy is some danger. —
Leave wringing of your hands : Peace ! sit you

down,

And let me wring your heart : for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned custom have not braz'd it so,
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag

thy tongue
In noise so rude against me 1

Ham. Such an act,

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty ;
Calls virtue, hypocrite ; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there ; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths : O ! such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul,2 and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words : Heaven's face doth glow
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.3

* Contraction here means the marriage contract. H

* So the folio : the quartos read thus :

•JUG HAMLET, ACT III

Queen. Ah me ! what act,

That roars so loud, and thunders in the inJex ? *

Ham. Look here upon this picture, and on this1,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow :
Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command ;
A station like the herald Mercury,5
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ;
A combination and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man :
This was your husband. Look you now, what fol

lows :

Here is your husband ; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother.6 Have you eyes 1
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten 7 on this moor 1 Ha ! have you eyes 1
You cannot call it love ; for, at your age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment : and what judgment
Would step from this to this 1 Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion ; but, sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd ; for madness would not err,

" Heaven's face does glow
O'er this solidity and compound mass,
With heated visage," &c. H.

4 The index, or table of contents, was formerly placed at the
beginning of hooks. In Othello, Act ii. sc. 2, we have, " an *'«-
dex and obscure prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts '"

6 Station does not mean the spot where any one is placed, but
the act of standing, the attitude. So in Antony and Cleopatra,
Act iii. sc. 3 : " Her motion and her station are as one."

* Here the allusion is to Pharaoh's dream; Genesis zli.

7 That is, to feed rankly or grossly : it is usually applied to the
fattening of animals. Marlowe has it for " to grow fat." Bat ia
the old word for increase ; whence we have battle, batten LatfuL

SC. IV, PRINCE OF DENMARK 307

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd,

But it reserv'd some quantity of choice,

To serve in such a difference.8 What devil was'U

That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind ? *

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,

Or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope.10

O shame ! whore is thy blush 1 Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,11

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,

And melt in her own fire : proclaim no shame,

When the compulsive ardour gives the charge ;

Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.12

Queen. O, Hamlet ! speak no more :

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul ;
And there I see such black and grained spots13
As will not leave their tinct.

Ham. Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed ; u
Stew'd in corruption ; honeying, and making love
Over the nasty sty ; —

• This passage, beginning at •• Sense, sure, you have," is want-
ing in the folio. Likewise, that just after, beginning, "Eye«
without feeling," and ending, " Could not so mope." H.

9 " The hoodwinke play, or hoodman blind, in some place called
blindmanbuf." — BARET.

10 That is, could not be so dull and stupid.

11 Mutine for mutiny. This is the old form of the verb. Shake-
speare calls mutineers mutines in a subsequent scene.

18 The quartos have pardons instead of panders. H.

is n Grained spots " are spots ingrained, or dyed in the grain,

H.

14 Enseamed is a term borrowed from falconry. It is well
known that (he seam of any animal was the fat or tallow ; and ft
nawk was said to be enseamed when she was too fat or gross fot
flight. — The undated quarto and that of 1611 read incestuous.

308 HAMLET, ACT III.

Queen. O, speak to me no more !

These words like daggers enter in mine ears:
No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham. A murderer, and a villain ;

A slave, that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord: — a vice of kings!16
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket !

Queen. No more !

Enter the Ghost.1'

Ham. A king of shreds and patches. —
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards ! — What would your gracious
figure1!

Queen. Alas ! he's mad.

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps'd in time and passion,17 lets go by
Th' important acting of your dread command T
O, say!

Gfiost. Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost-blunted purpose.
But, look ! amazement on thy mother sits :
O ! step between her and her fighting soul ;

41 That is, " the low mimic, the counterfeit, a dizard, or com-
mon vice and jester, counterfeiting the gestures of any man." —
FLEMING. Shakespeare afterwards calls him a king of shreds
and patches, alluding to the party-coloured habit of the vice or fool
in a play.

16 When the Ghost goes out, Hamlet says, — " Look, how it
steals away ! my father, 171 his habit as he liv'd." It has been
much argued what is meant by this ; that is, whether the Ghost
should wear armour here, as in former scenes, or appear in a dif-
ferent dress. The question is set at rest by the stage-direction
in the first quarto : " Eater the Ghost, in his night-gown." H.

17 Johnson explains this — "That having suffered time to slip
and passion to cool," &.C.

SC. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 309

Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.1*
Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham. How is it with you, lady 1

Queen. Alas ! how is't with you,
That you do hend your eye on vacancy,
And with th' incorporal air do hold discourse t
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep ;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,19
Starts up, and stands on end. O, gentle son !
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look t

Ham. On him ! on him ! — Look you, how pale

he glares !

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.20 — Do not look upon

me;

Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern affects : S1 then what I have to do
Will want true colour ; tears, perchance, for blood.

Queen. To whom do you speak this 1

Ham. Do you see nothing there 1

Queen. Nothing at all ; yet all that is I see.

Ham. Nor did you nothing hear ?

18 Conceit for conception, imagination. This was the common
force of the word in the Poet's time.

19 That is, like excrements alive, or having life in them. Hair,
nails, feathers, &.C., were called excrements, as being without life.
See The Winter's Tale, Act iv. sc. 3, note 47. H.

80 That is, would put sense and understanding into them. The
use of capable for susceptible, intelligent, is not peculiar to Shake-
speare. H.

ZI Affects was often used for affections ; as in Othello, " the
young affects in me defunct." The old copies read effects, which
was a frequent misprint for affects. Singer justly remarks, that
" the ' piteous action' of the Ghost could not alter things alreadj
effected, but might move Hamlet to a less stern mood of mind."

B-

310 HAMLET, AC I 111

Quten. No, nothing, but ourselves.

Ham. Why, look you there ! look, how it steals

away !

My father, in his habit as he liv'd !
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal .

[Exit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain :
This bodiless creation ecstasy "
Is very cunning in.

Ham. Ecstacy !

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness,
That I have utter'd : bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word ; which madness
Would gambol from.23 Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to Heaven ;
Repent what's past ; avoid what is to come ;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker.24 Forgive me this my virtue
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg ;
Vea, curb26 and woo, for leave to do him good.

81 This word has occurred in the same sense before. See scene
1, of this Act, note 22. H.

M Science has found the Poet's test a correct one. Dr. Ray,
of Providence, in his work on the Jurisprudence of Insanity, thus
states the point : •'• In simulated mania, the impostor, when request-
ed to repeat his disordered idea, will generally do it correctly 5
while the g-enuine patient will be apt to wander from the track, or
introduce ideas that had not presented themselves before." H.

14 That is, do not by any new indulgence heighten your fonnei
(ffences.

** That is, bow. " Courber, Fr., to bow, crook, or curb."

<C IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK.. 311

Queen. O, Hamlet \ them hast cleft my heart in
twain.

Ham. O \ throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night : but go not to my uncle's bed ;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,28
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night ;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy,
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And master the devil or throw him out27
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night I
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,

M A very obscure and elliptical passage, if indeed it be no!
corrupt. We have adopted Caldecott's pointing, which gives the
meaning somewhat thus : " That monster, custom, who devours or
eats out all sensibility or feeling as to what we do, though he be
the devil or evil genius of our habits, is yet our good angel in
this." Collier and Verplanck order the pointing thus: "Who all
sense doth eat of habits, devil, is angel yet in this." Where the
meaning is, — "That monster, custom, who takes away all sense
of habits, devil though he be, is still an angel in this respect."
This also pleads a fair title to preference, and we find it not easy
to choose between the two. Dr. Thirlby proposed to read, " Of
habits evil ;" which would give the clear and natural sense, that
by custom we lose all feeling or perception of bad habits, and be-
come reconciled to them as if they were nature. The probability,
however, that an antithesis was meant between devil and angel, is
against this reading; otherwise, we should incline to think it right,
— The whole sentence is omitted in the folio ; as is also the pass-
age beginning with " the next more easy," and ending with " won
drous potency." H.

87 So the undated quarto and that of 1611; the others have
either instead of master. Some editors, probably not knowing of
not consulting the copies first mentioned, have supplied curb or
quell after either H

812 HAMLET, ACT 111

I'll blessing beg of you. — For this same lord,

\Pointing to PoLONiua

I do repent : but hvaven hath pleas'd it so,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.28
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night !
I must be cruel, only to be kind :
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind. —
But one word more, good lady.29

Queen. What shall I do

Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed ;
Pinch wanton on your cheek ; call you his mouse ; if
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,31
Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd 6ngers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good, you let him know ,
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,32
Such dear concernings hide 1 who would do so t
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,

*8 The pronoun their refers, apparently, to heaven, which is
here a collective noun, put for the heavenly powers. H.

88 The words " But one word more, good lady," are not in th«
folio. And in the next line but one, the folio has blunt insteac. of
bloat. H.

30 Mouse was a term of endearment. Thus Burton, in his
Anatomy of Melancholy : " Pleasant name-; may be invented, bird,
mouse, lamb, p iss, pigeon."

11 Reeky an 1 reechy are the same word, and always applied to
any vapourous exhalation, even lo the fumes of a dunghill. See
Corioiaiius, Act ii. sc. 1. note 18.

K A vaddoi t is a toad ; a gib, a cat. See Macbeth, Act i. sc,
, note 3; aud 1 Henry IV., Act !. sc. 2, note 6. H.

SC. IV. f RINCE OF DENMARK. 313

To try conclusions in the basket creep,"
And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of

breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.34

Ham. I must to England ; you know that ?

Queen. Alack

I had forgot : 'tis so concluded on.

Ham. There's letters seal'd ; and my two school

fellows, —

Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd, —
They bear the mandate ; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work :
For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar ; " and it shall go hard,

33 To try conclusions is to put to proof, or try experiments.
See Antony and Cleopatra, Act v. sc..2, note 33. Sir John Suck-
ling possibly alludes to the same story in one of his letters : "It
is the story after all of the jackanapes and the partridges ; thou
starest after a beauty till it be lost to thee, and then let'st out an-
other, and starest after that till it is gone too."

34 " I confess," says Coleridge, " that Shakespeare has left the
sharacter of the Queen in an unpleasant perplexity. Was she, or
was she not, conscious of the fratricide?" This "perplexity,''
whatever it be, was doubtless designed by the Poet ; for in the
original form of the play she stood perfectly clear en this score ;
as appears from several passages in the quarto of 1603, which
were afterwards disciplined out of the text. Thus, in one place
of this scene, she says to Hamlet, —

" But, as I have a soul, I swear to Heaven,
I never knew of this most horrid murder."

And in this place she speaks thus :

" Hamlet, I vow by that Majesty,
That knows our thoughts and looks into oar hearts,
I will conceal, consent, and do my best,
What stratagem soe'er thou shall devise." •.

M Hoist for hoised. To hoyse was the old verb. A ptttr wai
B kind of mortar used to blow uf gales.

314 HAMLET, ACT IV

But I will delve one yard below their mines.
And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet.
When in one line two crafts directly meet.38 —
This man shall set me packing:
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room. —
Mother, good night. — Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you. —
Good night, mother. [Exeunt severally; HAMLET
dragging in POLONIUS.

ACT IV.

SCENE . I. The Same.
Enter the King, the Queen, ROSENCRANTZ, and

GUILDENSTERN.

King. There's matter in these sighs, these pro-
found heaves :

You must translate ; 'tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son 1

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.1 —
[Exeunt ROSEN, and GUILDEN,
A.h, my good lord, what have I seen to-night !
King. What, Gertrude ? How does Hamlet ?

s* The foregoing part of this speech is wanting in the folio.

H.

1 This line is omitted in the folio; Rosencrantz and Guilder-
stern not being there introduced till the King calls them, at tks
olace of their re-entrance. — In the next line, the quartos have^
'•mine own lord/' instead of < my good lord." H.

tC. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 31,5

Queen. Mad as the sea, and wind, whtn both

contend

Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
He whips his rapier out, and cries, "A rat! a rat ! wi
And in his brainish apprehension kills
The unseen good old man.

King. O, heavy deed !

It had been so with us, had we been there:
His liberty is full of threats to all ;
To you yourself, to us, to every one.
Alas ! how shall this bloody deed be answer'd ?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt,1
This mad young man : but, so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit ;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone ?

Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd ;
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,4
Shows itself pure : he weeps for what is done.

King. O, Gertrude ! come away.
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,

* So reads the folio ; the quartos give the line thus : " Whips
c'lt his rapier, cries, « a rat! a rat!' " In the next line, also, the
qimrtos have this instead of his. H.

3 Out of haunt means out of company.

4 Shakespeare, with a license not unusual among his contem-
poraries, uses ore for gold, and mineral for mine. Rullokar and
Blount both define "or or ore, gold; of a golden colour." And
tne Cambridge Dictionary, 1594, under the Latin word mineralia,
will show how the English mineral came to be used for a mine.
Thus also in The Golden Remaines of Hales of Eton, 1693 : " Con-
troversies of the times, like spirits in the minerals, with all their
labour nothing is done."

316 HAMLET, ACT IT

But we will ship him hence ; and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse. — Ho ! Guilden-
stern !

Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Friends both, go join you with some further aid.
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him
Go, seek him out ; speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this. —

[Exeunt ROSEN, and GUILDEN.
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends
And let them know both what we mean to do,
And what's untimely done: so, haply, slander —
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,"
Transports his poison'd shot — may miss our name,
And hit the woundless air.6 — O, come away!
My soul is full of discord, and dismay. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. Another Room in the Same.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Safely stowed.

Ros. and Guil [ Within.] Harnlet ! lord Hamlet !

* The blank was the mark at which shots or arrows were di-
rected.

• All this passage, after " untimely done," is wanting in th«
folio. The words, " so, haply, slander," are not in any old copy,
but were supplied by Theobald as necessary to the sense. The
well-known passage in Cymbeline, Act iii. sc. 4, beginning,—
"No; 'tis slander," — will readily occur to any student of Shake-
speare, as> favouring the insertion. H.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 317

Ham. But soft ! — what noise ? who calls on
Hamlet ? O ! here they come.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the
dead body ?

Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

Ros. Tell me where 'tis ; that we may take it

thence,
And bear it to the chapel.

Ham. Do not believe it.

Ros. Believe what ?

Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not
mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge,
what replication should be made by the son of a
king?

Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir ; that soaks up the king's counten-
ance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers
do the king best service in the end : he keeps them,
as an ape doth nuts,1 in the corner of his jaw ;
first mouth'd, to be last swallowed : When he needs
what you have glean'd, it is but squeezing you, and,
sponge, you shall be dry again.

Ros. I understand you not, my lord.

Ham. I am glad of it : a knavish speech sleeps
in a foolish ear.

Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body
is, and go with us to the king.

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is
not with the body.2 The king is a thing —

1 The words, " as an ape doth nuts," are from the quarto ot
1603. The other quartos merely have, "like an apple ; " which
Farmer and Ritson conjectured should be, " like an ape an apple.'1
The iblio has, '• like an ape," only. H.

* Hamlet is purposely talking riddles, in order to tease antf

'318 HAMLET, ACT IV

GuiL A thing, my lord 1

Ham. — of nothing : bring me to him. Hide fox,

and all after.3 [Exeunt.

SCENE III. Another Room in the Same.

Enter the King, attended.

King. I have sent to seek him, and to find the

body.

How dangerous is it, that this man goes loose !
Yet must not we put the strong law on him :
He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes ;
And, where 'tis so, th' offender's scourge is weigh 'd,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause : Diseases, desperate grown,
By desperate appliance are reliev'd,

Enter RosENCRANTZ.

Or not at all. — How now ! what hath befallen ?

Ros. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,
We cannot get from him.

King. But where is he 7

Ros. Without, my lord ; guarded, to know your
pleasure.

King. Bring him before us.

Ros. Ho, Guildenstern ! bring in my lord.

puzzle his questioners. The meaning of this riddle, to the best
of our guessing-, is, that the king's body is with the king, but not
the king's soul : he's a king without kingliness j " a king of shreds
und patches." H.

3 " Hide fox, and all after" was a juvenile sport, most prob-
ably what is now called hoop, or hide and seek ; in which one child
hides himself, and the rest run all after, seeking him.

SC. III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 319

Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN.

King. Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius ?

Ham. At supper.

King. At supper! Where?

Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten ;
a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at
him.1 Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we
fat all creatures else, to fat us ; and we fat ourselves
for maggots: Your fat king, and your lean beggar,
is but variable service ; two dishes, but to one table ;
that's the end.

King. Alas, alas ! s

Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hath
eat of a king ; and eat of the fish that hath fed of
that worm.

King. What dost thou mean by this ?

Ham. Nothing, but to show you how a king may
go a progress through the guts of a beggar.3

King. Where is Polonius ?

Ham. In heaven ; send thither to see : if your
messenger find him not there, seek him i'the other
place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not
within this month, you shall nose him as you go up
the stairs into the lobby.

King. [To Attendants.] Go seek him there.

Ham. He will stay till you come.

[Exeunt Attendants.

1 Alluding, .no doubt, to the Diet of Worms, which Protestants
of course regarded as a convocation of politicians. There were
little need of saying this, but that Mr. Collier's second folio sup
plies palated for politic, the word being omitted in the folios ; and
Mr. Collier thinks palaled is " certainly more applicable in the
place where it occurs." More applicable! H

* This speech and the following one are omitted in the folio.

* Alluding to the royal journeys of state, styled progretset

3'20 HAMLET, ACT IV

King, Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safe-
ty,—

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done, — must send thee

hence

With fiery quickness; therefore prepare thyself:
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
TV associates tend,4 and every thing is bent
For England.

Ham. For England ?

King. Ay, Hamlet.

Ham. Good.

King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

Ham. I see a cherub that sees them. — But,
come ; for England ! — Farewell, dear mother.

King. Thy loving father, Hamlet.

Ham. My mother : father and mother is man and
wife ; man and wife is one flesh ; and so, my mother.
Come, for England. [Exit.

King. Follow him at foot ; tempt him with speed

aboard :

Delay it not ; I'll have him hence to-night :
Away ; for every thing is seal'd and done,
That else leans on th' aftair : 'Pray you, make haste.
[ExeMnt ROSEN, and GUILDEN
And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,
(As my great power thereof may give thee sense ;
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us,) thou may'st not coldly set*

4 That is, the associates of your voyage are waiting. — " Tha
wrind at help" means, the wind serves, or is right, to forward yoa
— The words, "With fiery quickness," are not in the quartos.

K.

6 To set formerly meant to estimate. "To sette, or tell tha
pryce ; cettimare." To set much or little by a thing, is to estimate
it much or little.

SC IV PRINCE OF DENMARK. 321

Our sovereign process ; which imports at full,

By letters conjuring to that effect,6

The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England ;

For like the hectic in my hlood he rages,

And thou must cure me : Till I know 'tis done,

Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.7

[Exit

SCENE IV. A Plain in Denmark.

Enter FORTINBRAS, and Forces, marching.

For. Go, captain ; from me greet the Danish king
Tell him, that by his license Fortinbras
Claims the conveyance of a promis'd march
Over his kingdom.1 You know the rendezvous
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye.2
And let him know so.

Cap. I will do't, my lord.

For. Go softly on.3 ,

[Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Forces.

8 The folio has conjuring ; the quartos, congruing, which may
be right, in the sense of concurring or agreeing. Conjuring is
earnestly requesting. See Romeo and Juliet, Act v. sc. 3, note 3.

H.

7 Thus the folio ; the quartos, " my joys will ne'er begin.'
The folio reading is preferred on account of the rhyme ; with
which the scenes in this play are commonly closed. H.

1 The quartos have craves instead of claims, the reading of the
folio. H.

* In the Regulations for the Establishment of the Queen's
Household, 1627: " All such as doe service in the queen's eye."
And in The Establishment of Prince Henry's Household, 1610 .
" All such as doe service in the prince's eye."

* These words are probably spoken to the troops. The folio
has safely instead of softly. — What follows of this scene is want-
ing in the folio. H

322 EIAMI.ET, ACT IV.

Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, Sfc.

Ham. Good sir, whose powers are these ?

Cap. They are of Norway, sir.

Ham. How purpos'd, sir, I pray you ?

Cap. Against some part of Poland.

Ham. Who commands them, sir ?

Cap. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier 1

Cap. Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground,
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it ;
Nor will it yield to Norway, or the Pole,
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Cap. Yes, 'tis already garrison 'd.

Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thousand

ducats,

Will not debate the question of this straw :
This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. — I humbly thank you, sir.

Cap. God be wi' you, sir. [Exit Captain.

Ros. Will't please you go, my lord 1

Ham. I'll be with you straight. Go a little be-
fore.— [Exeunt ROSEN, and GUILDEN
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge ! What is a man,
If his chief good, and market of his time,
Be but to sleep and feed 1 a beast, no more.
Sure, He, that made us with such large discourse
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason,

SC. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 323

To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether il be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th' event, —

A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wia

dom,

And ever three parts coward, — I do not know
Why yet I live to say, "This thing's to do ;"
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and meant,
To do't. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me
Witness, this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff 'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event ;
Exposing what is mortal and unsure,
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great,
Is not to stir without great argument ;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake. How stand I, then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,*
And let all sleep ? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That for a fantasy, and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds ; fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause ;
Which is not tomb enough, and continent,6
To hide the slain ? — O ! from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth !

[Exit.

4 Provocations which excite both my reason and my passions
to vengeance.

* Continent means that which contains or encloses. " If there
be no fulnesse, then is the continent greater than the content."—'
Bacon's Advancement of Learning.

324 HAMLET, ACT JTO

SCENE V. Elsinore. A Room in the Castle.

.Enter the Queen, and HORATIO.'

Queen. I will not speak with her.
Hor. She is importunate ; indeed, distract :
Her mood will needs be pitied.

Queen. What would she have 1

Hor. She speaks much of her father ; says, she

hears
There's tricks i'the world ; and hems, and beats her

heart ;

Spurns enviously at straws ; * speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense : her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection ; 3 they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts ;
Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield

them,
Indeed would make one think, there might be

thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.4

Queen. 'Twere good, she were spoken with ; for

she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Let her come in. — [Exit HORATIO.

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

1 In this stage-direction, and in the assigning of the speeches-
in tb:s scene, we follow the folio. The quartos add "and a Gen-
tleman," and assign Horatio's first two speeches to biro. H.

2 Emiy was continually used for malice, spite, or hatred. See
The Merchant of Venice, Act iv. sc. 1, note 1.

3 That is, to gather or deduce consequences. To aim is to
guess. The quartos have yawn ; the folio, aim.

* Unhappily is here used in the sense of mischievously. See
Mu<"h Ado about Nothing, Act ii. sc. 1, note 21. 11.

SC. V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 325

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss : *
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA.'
Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of Den-
mark 1 7
Queen. How now, Ophelia!

Oph. [Sings.] How should I your true love know

From another one ?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.8

Queen. Alas, sweet lady ! what imports this son^ 1
Oph. Say you 1 nay, pray you, mark.

[Sing*.] He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone ;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.

O, ho!

Queen. Nay, but, Ophelia, —

* Shakespeare is not singular in the use of amiss as a substan
tive. Several instances are adduced by Mr. Nares in his Glossary.
" Each toy " is each trifle.

' In the quarto of 1603, this stage-direction is curious as show
tug '.hat Ophelia was originally made to play an accompaniment to
her singing. It reads thus : " Enter Ophelia, playing on a lute,
and her hair down, singing.'' H.

7 There is no part of this play in its representation on the stage
more pathetic than this scene ; which, I suppose, proceeds from
the utter insensibility Ophelia has to her own misfortunes. A great
sensibility, or none at all, seems to produce the same effects. In
the latter case the audience supply what is wanting, and with the
former the}' sympathize. — Sir J. REYNOLDS.

8 These were the badges of pilgrims. The cockle shell 'vas an
emblem of their intention logo beyond sea. The habit being held
sacred, was often assumed as a disguise in love-adventures. In
The Old VVive's Tale, by Peele, 1595 : « 1 will give thee a palmer's
tlaffof ivory, and a scallop shell of beaten gold."

326 HAMLET, ACT IT

Oph. Pray you, mark.
[Sing*.] White his shroud as the mountain snow,

Enter the King.
Queen. Alas ! look here, my lord.

Oph. Larded with sweet flowers ; 9

Which be wept to the grave did not go,
With true-love showers.

King. How do you, pretty lady ?

Oph. Well, God'ield you ! 10 They say, the awl
was a baker's daughter.11 Lord ! we know what we
are, but know not what we may be. God be at your
table !

King. Conceit upon her father.

Oph. Pray you, let's have no words of this ; but
when they ask you what it means, say you this :

To-morrow is St. Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine : l*

9 Larded is garnished. The quartos have all after larded. —
In the next line, the quartos, all but the first, have ground instead
of grave ; and all the old copies read, " did not go ; " which is
against both sense and metre, and was therefore considered an
error by Pope ; but it seems that Ophelia purposely alters the song,
to suit the "obscure funeral" of her father. H.

' That is, God yield, or reward you.

11 This is said to be a common tradition in Gloucestershire.
Mr. Douce relates it thus: "Our Saviour went into a baker's
shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat.
The mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough in
the oven to hake for him ; but was reprimanded by her daughter
who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it to
a very small size. The dough, however, immediately began to
swell, and presently became of a most enormous size. Where-
upon the baker's daughter cried out, ' Heugh, heugh, heugh'
which owl-like noise probably induced our Saviour to transform
her into that bird for her wickedness." The story is told to delei
children from illiberal behaviour to the poor.

lf The origin of the choosing of Valentines has not been clearlj

SC.T PRINCE OF DENMARK. 327

Then up he rose, and don'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber door ; l3

Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia !

Oph. Indeed, la ! without an oath, I'll make an
end ou't :

By Gis, and by St. Charity,

Alack, and fie for shame !
Young men will do't, if they come to't ,

By cock, they are to blame.14

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promis'd me to wed :

He answers, —

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

King. How long hath she been thus ?
Oph. I hope all will be well. We must be
patient ; but I cannot choose but weep, to think

developed. Mr. Douce traces it to a Pagan custom of the same
kind during the Lupercalia feasts in honour of Pan and Juno, cele-
brated in the month of February by the Romans. The anniver-
sary of the good bishop, or Saint Valentine, happening in this
month, the pious early promoters of Christianity placed this pop-
ular custom under the patronage of the saint, in order to eradicate
the notion of its pagan origin. ID France the Vulantin was a
moveable feast, celebrated on the first Sunday in Lent, which was
called \\tejourdesbrandons, because the boys carried al out light-
sd torches on that day. It is very probable that the saint has
nothing to do with the custom ; his legend gives no clue to an}' such
supposition. The popular notion that the birds choose their mates
about this period has its rise in the poetical world of fiction.

13 To dup is to do up, as to don is to do on. Thus in Damon
and Pythias, 1582 : " The porters are drunk ; will they not dup
the gate to-day ? " The phrase probably had its origin from doing
up or lifting the latch. In the old cant language to dup the gyger
was to open the door.

14 For an explanation of the phrase, " By cock," see The Meny
Wives of Windsoi, Act i. sc. 1, note 32. u.

32H HAMLET, ACT IV

they would lay him i'the cold ground. My brother
shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good
counsel. Come, my coach ! Good night, ladies •
good night, sweet ladies : good night, good night.

[Exit

King. Follow her close ; give her good watch, I
pray you. — [Exit HORATIO

O! this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death. And now, behold,
O Gertrude, Gertrude !

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. First, her father slain ;
Next, your son gone ; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove : the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whis-
pers,
For good Polonius' death ; and we have done but

greenly,

In hugger-mugger to inter him :15 poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts .
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France ;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,

14 Hugger-mugger occurs in the same sense in North's Plutarcn,
Life of Brutus : " When this was done, they came to talke of
Caesars will and testament, and of his funerals and tombe. Then,
Antonius thinking good his testament should be read openly, and
that his bodie should be honourably buried, and not in hugger
mufrrr. lest the people might thereby take occasion to be worse
offf .ntx) vasoios stoutly spake against it, but Brutus went ii
wr »e mo&ofc The obrase is thus explained by Florio : " Clan-
dr XMOT*, W MR • •once* »v *«ea!th. or in hugger-mugger."

B.

SC. V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 329

Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In epr and ear. O, my dear Gertrude ! this,
Like to a murdering-piece,16 in many places
Gives me superfluous death ! [A Noise within.

Queen. Alack! what noise is this ?IT

Enter a Gentleman.

King. Attend!
Where are my Switzers?18 Let them guard th*

door.
What is the matter ?

Gent. Save yourself, my lord !

The ocean, overpeering of his list,19
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste,
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord ;
And — as the world were now but to begin,20
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word —
They cry, "Choose we ; Laertes shall be king!"
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
•« Laertes shall be king, Laertes king ! "

18 A murdering-pieee, or murderer, was a small piece of ajfc.-
lery. " Visiere meurtriere, a port-hole for a murthering-pitce in
the forecastle of a ship." — COTGRAVE. Case shot, filled with
imall bullets, nails, old iron, &c., was often used in these murder-
erg. This accounts for the raking fire attributed to them in the
text.

17 This speech is found only in the folio.

18 Switzers, for royal guards. The Swiss were then, as since,
mercenary soldiers of any nation that could afford to pay them.

9 That is, swelling beyond his bounds.

*° As has here the force of a* if. The explanation sometime*
given of the passage is, that the rabble are the ratifiers and props
of every idle word. The plain sense is, that antiquity and custom
•re the ratifiers and props of every sound word touching the raaV
ter in haH, the ordering of human society and the State. H

330 HAMLET, ACT iv

Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry
O ! this is counter, you false Danish dogs.21

King. The doors are broke. [Noise within

Enter LAERTES, armed; Dants following.

Laer. Where is this king ? — Sirs, stand you all

without.

Danes. No, let's come in.

Laer. I pray you, give me leave

Danes. We will, we will.

[They retire without the Door
Laer. I thank you : keep the door. — O, thou vile

king!
Give me my father.

Queen. Calmly, good Laertes.

Laer. That drop of blood that's calm proclaims

me bastard ;

Cries, cuckold, to my father ; brands the harlot
Ev*m here, between the chaste unsmirched brows
Of my true mother.22

King. What is the cause, Laertes,

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like ? —
Let him go, Gertrude ; do not fear our person :
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.23 — Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incens'd. — Let him go, Ger

trude. —
Speak, man.

41 Hounds are said to run counter when they are upon a false
scent, or hunt it by the heel, running backward and mistaking the
course of the game.

** Unsmirched is unsullied, spotless.

M " Proofs," says Coleridge, " as indeed all else is, that Shake-
speare never intended us lo see the King with Hamlet's eyes ;
tSough, 1 suspect, the managers have long done so." 0.

SC. V PRINCE OF DENMARK. 331

Laer. Where is my father ?

King. Dead.

Queen. But not by him

King. Let him demand his fill.

Laer How came he dead ? I'll not be juggled

with :

To hell, allegiance ! vows, to the blackest devil !
Conscience, and grace, to the profoundest pit !
I dare damnation. To this point I stand, —
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes, only I'll be reveng'd
Most throughly for my father.

King. Who shall stay you ?

Laer. My will, not all the world:
And, for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.

King. Good Laertes,

If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your re-
venge,
That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and

foe,
Winner and loser ?

Laer. None but his enemies.

King. Will you know them, then 1

Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my

arms ;

And like the kind life-rendering pelican.
Repast them with my blood.84

** The pelican is a fabulous bird, often referred to by the old
poets for illustration. It was also much used as a significant or-
Eament in Mediaeval church architecture, the pelican being repre-
sened as an eagle. An old oook. entitled « A Choice of Emblems
and other Devices, by Geffrey Whitney, 1586," contains a picture
of an eagle on her nest, tearing open her breast to feed her young
beneath, are the following lines :

332 HAMLET, ACT IV.

King. Why, now you speak

Like a good child, and a true gentleman,.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce "
As day does to your eye.

Danes. [Within.] Let her come in.

JLaer. How now ! what noise is that 1

Re-enter OPHELIA."

O heat, dry up my brains ! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye ! —
By Heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight.
Till our scale turn the beam. O, rose of May !
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia ! —
O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life ?
Nature is fine in love ; and, where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.27

Oph. They bore him barefac'd on the bier ;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny :
And in his grave rain'd many a tear ; —

Fare you well, my dove !

" The pellican, for to revive her younge,
Doth pierce her brest, and geve them of her blood :
Thon searche your brest, and, as you have with tongue,
With penne proceede to doe our countrie good." H.

** The folio has pierce ; the quartos, pear, meaning, of course,
appear. The latter is both awkward in language and tame in
sense. Understanding level in the sense of direct, pierce gives an
apt and clear enough meaning. H.

M Modern editions commonly add here, "fantastically dressed
with Straws and Flowers." There is no authority, and not much
occasion, for any such stage-direction. H.

*7 This and the two preceding lines are found only in the folio
as is also the second line of the next speech. K

SC. V PRINCE OP DENMARK. 333

Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade

revenge,

It could not move thus.
Oph. You must sing, —

Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it ! S8 It is the false
steward, that stole his master's daughter.89

Laer. This nothing's more than matter.

Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance ;
pray you, love, remember : and there is pansics,
that's for thoughts.30

88 The wheel is the burthen of a ballad, from the Latin rota, a
round, which is usually accompanied with a burthen frequently re-
peated. Thus also, in old French, roterie signified such a round
or catch. Steevens forgot to note from whence he made the fol
lowing extract, though he knew it was from the preface to some
black letter collection of songs or sonnets : "The song was ac-
counted a good one, though it was not moche graced with the
wheele, which in no wise accorded with the subject matter there-
of." It should be remembered that the old musical instrument
called a rote, from its wheel, was also termed melle, quasi wheel.

39 Meaning, probably, some old ballad, of which no traces have
survived. H.

30 Our ancestors gave to almost every flower and plant its em
blematic meaning, and. like the ladies of the east, made them al-
most as expressive as written language. Perdita, in The Winter's
Tale, distributes her flowers in the same manner as Ophelia, and
some of them with the same meaning. The Handfull of Pleasant
Dclites, 1584, has a ballad called " A Nosegaie nlwaies sweet for
Lovers to send for Tokens," where we find, —

" Rosemarie is for remembrance
Betweene us day and night."

Rosemarie had this attribute because it was said to strengthen the
memory, and was therefore used as a token of remembrance and
affection between lovers. Why pansies (pensees) are emblems
of thoughts is obvious. Fennel was emblematic of Jiattery
Browne, in his Britannia's Pastorals, says, —

" The columbine, in tawny often taken,
Is then ascrib'd to such as are forsaken."

Rtte was fc.i ruth 01 repentance. It was also commonly calico

334 HAMLET, ACT IV.

Laer. A document iu madness ; thoughts and
remembrance fitted.

Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines : —
there's rue for you, and here's some for me : we
may call it herb of grace o'Sundays : — you may
wear your rue with a difference. — There's a daisy:
I would give you some violets, but they wither'd
all, when my father died. — They say, he made a
good end, —

[Sings.'] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy, —

Laer. Thought and affliction,31 passion, hell it-
self,
She turns to favour, and to prettiness.

Oph. [Sings.] And will he not come again ?
And will he not come again ?
No, no, he is dead ;
Go to thy death-beu ;
He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll :

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan :
God ha' mercy on his soul ! 3Z

herb grace, prohably from being accounted " a present remedy
against all poison, and a potent auxiliary in exorcisms, all evil
things fleeing from it." Wearing it with a difference was an her-
aldic term for a mark of distinction. The daisy was emblematic
of a dissembler. The violet is for faithfulness, and is thus char-
acterised in The Lover's Nosegaie.

31 Thought was used for grief, care, pensiveness. "-Curarum
volvere in pectore. He will die for sorrow and thought." — BA-

RET.

38 Pool Ophelia in her madness remembers the ends of many
old popular ballads. " Bonnv Robin " appears to have b^en a
favourite, for there were many others written to that tune. This
last stanza is quoted with some variation in Eastward Ho! 1(106,
by Jonson, Marsion, and Chapman.

»C. V PRINCE OF DENMARK.. 335

And of all Christian souls ! I pray God. God be
wi' you ! 33 [Exit.

Laer. Do you see this, O God ?

King. -Laertes, I must common with your grief,34
Or you deny me right. Go but apart ;
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and m«\
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,
To you in satisfaction ; but, if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.

Laer. Let this be so .

His means of death, his obscure funeral, —
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment, o'er his bones,
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation, —
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call't in question.35

King. So you shall ;

And where th' offence is, let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me. [Exeunt

33 The words, "I pray God," are not in the quartos. H.

34 The use of common as a verb, in the sense of making com-
mon, or of having or feeling in common, is very frequent in the
old writers. In this place, as in many others, it is usually changed
to rommune, with which it is nearly synonymous. We retain the
old form, as giving a somewhat stronger sense, and also as suiting
the measure better. H.

35 The funerals of knights and persons of rank were made with
great ceremony and ostentation formerly. Sir John Hawkins ob
serves that " the sword, the helmet, the gauntlet, spurs, and tabard
are »till hung over the grave of every knight."

336 HAMLET, ACT IT

SCENE VI. Another Room in the Same.

Enter HORATIO and a Servant. ,

//or. What are they that would speak with me 1
Serv. Sailors, sir : ' they say they have letters
for you.

Hor. Let them come in. — [Exit Servant.

1 do not know from what part of the world
I should be greeted, if not from lord Hamlet.

Enter Sailors.

I Sail. God bless you, sir.

Hor. Let Him bless thee too.

1 Sail. He shall, sir, an't please Him. There's
a letter for you, sir : it comes from th' ambassador
that was bound for England ; if your name be Ho-
ratio, as I am let to know it is.

Hor. [Reads.] Horatio, when thou shalt have overlook'd
this, give these fellows some means to the king : they have
letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate
of very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding our
selves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour ; and
in the grapple I boarded them : on the instant, they got
clear of our ship ; so I alone became their prisoner. They
have dealt with me like thieves of mercy ; but they knew
what they did ; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the
king have the letters I have sent ; and repair thou to me
with as much haste as thou would'st fly death. I have
words to speak in thine ear, will make thee dumb ; yet are
they much too light for the bore of the matter.* These
good fe ows will bring thee where I am. Rosencranta
and Guildenstern hold their course for England : of them
I have much to tell thee. Farewell :

He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.

1 The quartos read Sea-faring men instead of Sailors. B
a Tiie bore is the caliber of a guu.

SC. VII. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 33Ti

Come, I will give you way for these your letters ;
And do't the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them. [Exeunt.

SCENE VII. Another Room in the Same.

Enter the King and LAERTES.

King. Now must your conscience my acquittance

seal,

And you must put me in your heart for friend ;
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life.

Laer. It well appears: — But tell me,

Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful l and so capital in nature,
As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else
You mainly were stirr'd up.

King. O ! for two special reasons ;

Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,
But yet to me they are strong. The queen, hia

mother,

Lives almost by his looks ; and, for myself,
(My virtue, or my plague, be it either which,)
She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
[ could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,
Is the great love the general gender * bear him ;
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,

1 So the folio; the quartos, criminal.

* That is, the common race of the people. We have the gt*
tral and the million in other places in the same sense.

&J8 HAMLET, ACT iv

Convert his gyves to graces. So that my arrows.
Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,3
Would have reverted to my how again,
And not where I had aim'd them.

Lier. And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate terms ;
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,4
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections. But my revenge will come.

King. Break not your sleeps for that : you mu«t

not think

That we are made of stuff so flat and dull,
That we can let our beard be shook with danger,
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more :
I lov'd your father, and we love ourself ;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine, —
How now ! what news ? *

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Letters, rny lord, from Hamlet ;

This to your majesty ; this to the queen.

King. From Hamlet ! who brought them ?

Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say ; I saw them not :
They were given me by Claudio ; he receiv'd them
Of him that brought them.

King. Laertes, you shall hear them. —

Leave us. [Exit Messenger.

'Reads.] High and mighty, you shall know, I am set na-
ked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see
your kingly eyes ; when I shall, first asking your pardon

* " Lighte ihafles cannot stand in a rough wind."— ASCHAM.
4 " If I may praise what has been, but is now no more."

* The words, " How DOW ! what news ? " and also a part of
ihe answer, " Letters, my lord, from Hamlet," a'e not \r. th«
quartos. a

»C. VII PRINCE OF DENMARK. £39

the/eunto, recount th' occasions of my sudden and more
atrange return.6 HAMLET.

What should this mean ! Are all the rest come

back?
Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

Laer. Know you the hand ?

King. 'Tis Hamlet's character. "Naked," —
And, in a postscript here, he says, " alone : "
Can you advise me ?

Laer. I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come :
It warms the very sickness in my heart,
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
" Thus diddest thou."

King. If it be so, Laertes, —

As how should it be so, how otherwise ? —
Will you be rul'd by me ?

Laer. Ay, my lord ;

So you will not o'errule me to a peace.

King. To thine own peace. If he be now re-

turn'd,

A.3 checking at his voyage,7 and that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
I nder the which he shall not choose but fall ;
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice,
And call it accident.

Laer. My lord, I will be rul'd;

The rather, if you could devise it so,
That I might be the organ.

* The words, " and more strange," are in the folio only. H.

Thus the folio : the undated quarto and that of 1611 read "As
liking not" for "As checking at;" the other quartos, " As tht
ting at." To check at is a term in falconry, meaning to start
»way or fly off from the lure. See Twelfth Night Ac: ii. sc. 6,
note 10 B

340 HAMLET, ACT IV

King. It falls right.

You have been talk'J of since your travel much,
And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
Wherein they say you shine : your sum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him,
As did that one ; and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege.8

Laer. What part is that, my lord 1

King. A very rihand in the cap of youth,*
Yet needful too ; for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears,
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness.10 — Two months

since,

Here was a gentleman of Normandy, —
I have seen, myself, and serv'd against the French,
And they can well on horseback ; but this gallant
Had witchcraft in't ; he grew unto his seat ;
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
As he had been incorps'd and demi-natur'd
With the brave beast : so far he topp'd my thought,
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,11
Come short of what he did.

Laer. A Norman was't ?

King. A Norman.

Laer. Upon my life, Lamord.

King. The very same.

* The Poet again uses siege for teat, that is, place or rank, in
Othello, Act i. sc. 2 : " I fetch my life and being from men of royal
siege." The usage was not uncommon. H.

9 We have elsewhere found very used in the sense of mere.

H.

10 Thus far of this speech, and all the three preceding speeches
•re wanting in the folio. H.

:1 That is, in the imagination of shapes and tricks, or feats.
This use of forge and forgery was not unfrequent. —To top n
to turpast. See King Lear, Act i. sc. t, note 3. H.

SO1. VII. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 341

Laer. I know him well : he is the brooch, indeed,
And gem of all the nation.

King. He made confession of you ;
And gave you such a masterly report,
For art and exercise in your defence,18
And for your rapier most especially,
That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed,
If one could match you : the scrimers of their na*

tion,13

He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you oppos'd them. Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy,
That he could nothing do, but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o'er, to play with you.
Now, out of this, —

Laer. What out of this, my lord ?

King. Laertes, was your father dear to you ?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart ?

Laer. Why ask you this f

King. Not that I think you did not lore your

father,

But that I know love is begun by time ; u
And that I see, in passages of proof,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
There lives within the very flame of love1*
A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it :
And nothing is at a like goodness still ;

14 Science of defence, that is, fencing.

13 Scrimers, fencers, from escrimeur, FT. This unfavourable
description of French swordsmen is not in the folio.

14 As love is beg-un by time, and has its gradual increase, no
time qualifies and abates it. Passages of proof are transactions
of daily experience.

11 This and the nine following lines are not in the folio, u.

342 HAMLET, ACT IV

For goodness, growing to a plurisy,"

Dies in his own too-much. That we would do,

We should do when we would ; for this " would *

changes,

And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents ;
And then this " should " is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing.17 But, to the quick o'the

ulcer. ,,

Hamlet comes back : What would you undertake.
To show yourself your father's son, in deed
More than in words 1

Laer. To cut his throat i'the church.

King. No place, indeed, should murder sanc-

tuarize ;
Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laer

tes,

Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet, return'd, shall know you are come home :
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence,
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you ; bring you, in fine, to-
gether,

And wager o'er your heads : he, being remiss.
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils ; so that with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

18 Plurisy is superabundance ; the word was used in this sense
as if it came from plus, pluris. So in Massinger's Unnatural
Combat : " Thy plurisy of goodness is thy ill 3 " which Gifford
explains " thy superabundance of goodness." re.

17 Mr. Blakeway justly observes, that " Sorrow for neglected
opportunities and time abused seems most aptly compared to the
sigh of a spendthrift ; — good resolutions not carried into effect are
deeply injurious to the moral character. Like sighs, they hurt by
easing ; they unburden the mind and satisfy the conscience, without
producing any effect upon the conduct."

SC. VII. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 343

A. sword unhated,18 and in a pass of practice
Requite him for your father.

Laer. I will do't;

And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword."
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal, that but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death.
That is but scratch'd withal : I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.20

King. Let's further think of thia ;

Weigh, what convenience, both of time and means,
May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance,
*Twere better not assay'd : therefore this project
Should have a back, or second, that might hold,

18 That is, unblunted. To bate, or rather to rebate, was to make
dull. Thus in Love's Labour's Lost : " That honour which shall
bate his scythe's keen edge." — Pass of practice is an insidious
thrttst.

13 Warburton having pronounced Laertes " a good character,"
Coleridge thereupon makes the following note : " Mercy on War-
burton's notion of goodness ! Please to refer to the seventh scena
of this Act ; — 'I will do't ; and, for this purpose, I'll anoint my
sword,' — uttered by Laertes after the King's description of Ham-
let : ' He, being remiss, most generous, and free from all contriv-
ing, will not peruse the foils.' Yet I acknowledge that Shake-
speare evidently wishes, as much as possible, to spare the character
of Laertes, — to break the extreme turpitude of his consent to be-
come in agent and accomplice of the King's treachery; — and to
this end he re-introduces Ophelia at the close of this scene, to af-
ford a probable stimulus of passion in her brother." n.

90 Ritson has exclaimed against the villanous treachery of Laer-
tes in this horrid plot : he observes " there is more occasion that
he should be pointed out for an object of abhorrence, as he is a
character we are led to respect and admire in some preceding
scenes." Tn the quarto of 1603 this contrivance original e» with
the king.

344 HAMLET, ACT IV

If this should blast in proof.21 Soft ! — let me

see : —

We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,*1 —
I ha't :

When in your motion you are hot and dry,
(As make your bouts more violent to that end,)
And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepar'd him
A chalice for the nonce ; whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,23
Our purpose may hold there. But stay ! what noise 1

Enter the Queen.

How, sweet queen ! "

Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow. — Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

Laer. Drown'd ! O, where ?

Queen. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,"
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream :
There with fantastic garlands did she come,
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,

n That is, as fire-arms sometimes burst in proving1 their
strength.

** Cunning is skill.

*3 A stuck is a thrust. Stoccata, Ital. Sometimes called a
ttaccado in English.

M These words occur only in the folio. — " That Laertes," says
Coleridge, " might be excused in some degree for not cooling, the
Act concludes with the affecting death of Ophelia ; who in the be-
ginning lay like a little projection of land into a lake or stream,
covered with spray-flowers, quietly reflected in the quiet waters ;
but at length is undermined or loosened, and becomes a faery isle,
and after a brief vagrancy sinks almost without an eddy." H.

** Thus the folio ; the quartos, all but (he first, read " ascaunt
the brook." Also, in the next line but one, the quartos have make
instead of come. — This exquisite passage is deservedly celebrated.
Nothing could better illustrate the Poet's power to make the des-
cription of a tLing better than the thing itself, by giving us his eye*
to see it with. B.

SC. VII. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 5345

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,8*

But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke ;

When do\vu her weedy trophies, and herself,

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread

wide,

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up ;
Which time, she chanted snatches of old lauds ; **
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element : but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
PulPd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

Laer. Alas ! then, she is drown'd T

Queen. Drown'd, drown'd.

Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears : but yet
It is our trick ; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will : when these are gone,
The woman will be out. — Adieu, my lord !
T have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly drowns it. [Exit.

King. Let's follow, Gertrude :

How much I had to do to calm his rage !
Now fear I, this will give it start again ;
Therefore, let's follow. [Exeunt.

** The ancient botanical name of the long purples was testiculit
morionis, or orchis priapiscus. The grosser name to which the
queen alludes is sufficiently known in many parts of England. Ii
bad kindred appellations in other languages. In Sussex it is said
to be "ailed dead men's hands. Liberal here means f'-et-spoken,
licentious.

*7 That is, old hymns or songs of praise. The folio has tunet
instead of lauds ; which, besides thai, it loses a fine touch of pa-
thos, does not agree so well with chanting. — Incapable is evident!*
used in the sense of unconscious. H.

346 HAMLET, ACT V.

ACT V.

SCENE I. A Church-Yard.

Enter two Clowns, urith Spades, Sfc

1 Clo. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, that
wilfully seeks her own salvation 1

2 Clo. I tell thee she is ; therefore make her
grave, straight : ! the crowner hath set on her, and
finds it Christian burial.

1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned
herself in her own defence ?

2 Clo. Why, 'tis found so.

1 Clo. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be
else. For here lies the point : If I drown myself
witt ngly, it argues an act ; and an act hath three
branches ; it is, to act, to do, and to perform : ar-
gal, she drown'd herself wittingly.8

1 Straight for straightway ; a common usage. B.

* Shakespeare's frequent and correct use of legal terms and
phrases has led to the belief that he must have served something
of an apprenticeship in the law. Among the legal authorities
studied in his time, were Plowden's Commentaries, a black-letter
book, written in the old law French. " One of the cases reported
bv Plowden, is that of Dame Hales, regarding the forfeiture of a
lease, in consequence of the suicide of Sir James Hales ; and Sir
John Hawkins has pointed out, that this rich burlesque of " crpwn
er's-quest law " was probably intended as a ridicule on certain
passages in that case. He produces the following speecu of one
of the counsel : " Walsh said that the act consists of three parts.
The first is the imagination, which is a reflection or meditation of
the mind, whether or no it is convenient for him to destroy himself,
Brd what way it can be done. The second is the resolution, which
is a determination of the mind to destroy himself, and to do it in
this or that particular way. The third is the perfection, which is
the execution of what the mind has resolved to do. And this per-
fection consists of two parts, the beginning and the end. The b«^

t>C. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 347

2 Clo, Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.

1 Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water ;
good : here stands the man ; good : If the man go
to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill
he, he goes ; mark you that : but if the water come
to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself:
argal, he that is not guilty of his own death short-
ens not his own life.3

2 Clo. But is this law ?

1 Clo. Ay, marry, is't ; crowner's-quest law.

2 Clo. Will you ha' the truth on't ? If this had
not been a gentlewoman, she should have been
buried out of Christian burial.

1 Clo. Why, there thou say'st : and the more
pity, that great folks shall have countenance in
this world to drown or hang themselves, more than
their even-Christian.4 Come, my spade. There is
no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and
grave-makers ; they hold up Adam's profession. •

2 Clo. Was he a gentleman 1

ginning is the doing of the act which causes the death ; and the
end is the death, which is only a sequel to the act." H.

3 We must here produce another passage from Plowden, as
given by Hawkins. It is the reasoning of one of the judges, and
is nearly as good as that in the text : " Sir James Hales was dead,
and how came he to his death ? It may be answered, by drown-
ing ; and who drowned him ? Sir James Hales. And when did
he drown him '/ in his life-time. So that Sir James Hales, being
alive, caused Sir James Hales to die ; and the act of the living
man was the death of the dead man. And then for this offence it
is reasonable to punish the living man who committed the offence,
and not the dead man. But how can he be said to be punished
ah'ye, when the punishment comes after his death? Sir, this can
be done no other way but by divesting out of him, from the time
of the act done in his life which was the cause of his death, the
title and property of those things which he had in his life-time."

H.

4 Even-Christian for fellow-Christian, was the old mode of ex-
pression ; and is to be found in Chaucer and the Chroniclers. \V\r-
liffe has even-tenant for fellow -servant-

348 HAMLET, ACT f

1 Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms

2 Clo. Why, he had none.5

1 Clo. What ! art a heathen ? How dost thou
understand the Scripture ? The Scripture says Adam
digg'd : could he dig without arms ? I'll put another
question to thee : if thou answerest me not to the
purpose, confess thyself —

2 Clo. Go to.

1 Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either
the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter 1

2 Clo. The gallows-maker ; for that frame out-
lives a thousand tenants.8

1 Clo. I like thy wit well, in good faith : the
gallows does well : But how does it well 1 it doea
well to those that do ill : now, thou dost ill, to say
the gallows is built stronger than the church : ar-
gal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again;
come.

2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a ship-
wright, or a carpenter ?

1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.7

2 Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clo. To't.

2 Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance.

I Clo. Cudgel thy brains no more about it ; for
your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating :
and, when you are ask'd this question next, say, a
grave-maker : the houses that he makes last till

* This speech and the next, as far as arms, are not in the
quartos.

• So the folio ; frame is not in the quartos. H.

7 This was a common phrase for giving over or ceasing t » do
• thing, a metaphor derived from the unyoking of oren at the end
of their labour.

6C. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 34U

doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan ; fetch me a
stoop of liquor. [Exit 2 Clown.

[Sings.] In youth, when I did love, did love, [Digging."]

Methought, it was very sweet,
To contract, O ! the time, for, ah ! my behove
O, methought, there was nothing meet8

Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business,
that he sings at grave-making?

Hur. Custom hath made it in him a property of
easiness.

Ham. 'Tis e'en so : the hand of little employment
hath the daintier sense.

1 Clo. [Sings.] But age, with his stealing steps,

Hath claw'd me in his clutch,

And hath shipp'd me intill the land,

As if I had never been such.

[Throws up a SkulL

Ham. That skull had a tongue in it, and could
sing once : how the knave jowls it to the ground,
as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first.
murder ! This might be the pate of a politician,

* The original ballad from whence these stanzas are taken is
printed in Tottel's Miscellany, or Songes and Sonnettes by Lord
Surrey and others. 1575. The ballad is attributed to Lord Vaux,
and is printed by Dr. Percy in his Reliques of Ancient Poetry.
The ohs and the aim are caused by the forcible emission of the
digger's breath at each stroke of the mattock. The original rum
thus :

" I lothe that I did love,

In youth that I thought swete i
As time requires for my behove,
Methinks they are not mete.

" For age with stealing steps

Hath claude me with bis crowch ;
And lusty youthe away he leaps,
As there had bene none such "

350 HAMLET, ACT 7

wliich this ass now o'erreaches ; one that would
circumvent God, might it not ?

//or. It might, my lord.

Ham. Or of a courtier, which could say, " Good-
morrow, sweet lord ! How dost tliou, good lord ? "
This might be my lord such-a-one, that prais'd my
lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it ;
might it not 1

Hor. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Why, e'en so ; and now my lady Worm's ; '
chapiess, and knock'd about the mazzard with a
sexton's spade : Here's fine revolution, an we had
the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more,
the breeding, but to play at loggets I0 with 'em 1
mine ache to think on't.

I Clo. [Sing's.] A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,

For and a shrouding sheet : u
O ! a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

[Throws up another Skull.

Ham. There's another : why may not that be the
skull of a lawyer ? Where be his quiddits now,
bis quillets,12 his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?

* The skull that was my lord such-a-one's is now my lady
worm's.

10 Logffft.s are small logs or pieces of wood. Hence loggett
was the name of an ancient rustic game, wherein a stake was fixed
ID the ground at which loggets were thrown ; in short, a ruder kind
of quoit play.

II This is another stanza from the same ballad quoted in note 8.
" For and," says Mr. Dycn, " in the present version of the stanza,
answers to And flee in that given by Percy." So ;n Beaumont
and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle : " Your squire doth
come, and with him comes tno lady, for and the Squire of Dam-
sels, as I take it." And in Middlelon's Fair Quarrel : " A hippo-
crene, a tweak, for and a fucns." H.

18 Quiddits are quirks, or subtle questions ; and quillets are
nice and frivolous distinctions. The etymology of this last fool

3C. I. PRINCE OF OENMAKK. 3ol

why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock
him about the sconce '3 with a dirty shovel, and will
not tell him of his action of battery 1 Humph ! This
fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with
his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double
vouchers, his recoveries : M Is this the fine of his
fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have
his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers
vouch him no more of his purchases, and double
ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of
indentures ? The very conveyances of his lands
will hardly lie in this box ; and must the inheritor
himself have no more 1 ha ?

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins 1

If or. Ay, my lord, and of calve-skins too.

Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which seek out
assurance in that.18 I will speak to this fellow. —
Whose grave's this, sir 1

ish word has plagued many learned heads. Blount, in his Glot
sograpby, clearly points out quodlibet as the origin of it. Bishop
Wilkins calls a quillet " a frivolousness."

1J Sconce was not unfreejuently used for head. — The quartos
have " mad knave." In this speech, the folio has several other
•light variations from the quartos ; in which we follow the former.

H.

14 Shakespeare here is profuse of his legal learning. Ritson, a
lawyer, shall interpret for him : " A recovery with double voucher,
is the one usually suffered, and is so called from two persons be
ing successively voucher, or called upon to warrant the tenant's
title. Both Jines and recoveries are fictions of law, used to con
vert an estate tail into a fee simple. Statutes are (not acts 01
parliament) but statutes merchant, and staple, particular modes of
recognizance or acknowledgment for securing debts, which thereoj
become a charge upon the party's land. Statutes and recogni'
zances are constantly mentioned together in the covenants of a
purchase deed."

lo A quibble is here implied upon parchment ; deeds, which wert
always written on parchment, being in legal language " conimot

KMUIUCM."

352 HAMLET, ACT V

1 Clo. Mine, sir. —

[Sings.] O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

Ham. I think it be thine, indeed ; for thou liest
in't.

1 Clo. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
yours : for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.

Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't, and say it is
thine : 'tis for the dead, not for the quick ; there-
fore thou liest.

1 Clo. 'Tis a quick lie, sir ; 'twill away again,
from me to you.

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for ?

I Clo. For no man, sir.

Ham. What woman, then 1

1 Clo. For none, neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in't 1

1 Clo. One that was a woman, sir ; but, rest her
soul ! she's dead.

Ham. How absolute the knave is ! we must speak
by the card,16 or equivocation will undo us. By
the Lord, Hi ratio, these three years I have taken
note of it; the age is grown so picked,17 that the
toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the
courtier, he galls his kibe. — How long hast thou
been a grave-maker 1

1 Clo. Of all the days i'the year, I came to't
that day that our last king Hamlet overcame For
tiribras.

Ham. How long is that since 1

16 "To speak by the card." is to speak precisely, by iule, o«
according to .1 prescribed course. It is a metaphor from the sea-
man's card or chart by which he guides his course.

17 Picked, is curious, over nice. See King John. Ac» i. MS. 1
not* 23

s5C. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 353

1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell
that • it was the very day that young Hamlet was
born;18 he that is mad, and sent into England.

Ham. Ay, marry ; why was he sent into Eng-
land ?

1 Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall re
cover his wits there ; or, if he do not, 'tis no great
matter there.

Ham. Why?

1 Clo. 'Twill not be seen in him there ; there the
men are as mad as he.

Ham. How came he mad 1

1 Clo. Very strangely, they say.

Ham. How strangely 1

1 Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

Ham. Upon what ground 1

1 Clo. Why, here in Denmark : I have been sex-
ton here, man and boy, thirty years.

Ham. How long will a man lie i'the earth ere he
rot?

1 Clo. 'Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,
(as we have many pocky corses now-a-days,19 that
will scarce hold the laying in,) he will last you some
eight year, or nine year : a tanner will last you nine
year.

Ham. Why he more than another ?

1 Clo. Why, sir, his hide is so tann'd with his
trade, that he will keep out water a great while ;
and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson
dead body. Here's a skull now ; this skull hath
lain you i'the earth three-and-twenty years.

18 By this scene it appears that Hamlet was then thirty yean
old, and knew Yorick well, who had been dead twenty-three years.
And yet in the beginning of the play he is spoken of as one thai
designed to go hack to the university of Wittenburgh.

19 Noic-a-days is in the folio only.

354 HAMLET, ACT V

Ham. Whose was it 1

1 Clo. A whoreson rnad fellow's it was: whose
do you 'think it was?

Ham. Nay, I know not.

1 Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue ! a'
pour'd a flagon of Rhenish on my head once.
This same skull, sir, this same skull, sir, was Yor-
ick's skull, the king's jester.20

Ham. This ?

1 Clo. E'en that.

Ham. Let me see. [Takes the Skull.] Alas, poor
Yorick ! — I knew him, Horatio ; a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy : he hath borne me on
his back a thousand times ; and now, how abhorred
in my imagination it is ! my gorge rises at it. Here
hung those lips, that I have kiss'd I know not how
oft. Where be your gibes now ? your gambols 1
your songs 1 your flashes of merriment, that were
wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to
mock your own grinning ? quite chap-fallen ? Now,
get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her
paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come ;
make her laugh at that. — Pr'ythee, Horatio, tell
me one thing.

Hor. What's that, my lord ?

Ham. Dost thou think Alexander look'd o'this
fashion i'the earth ?

Hor. E'en so.

Hon.. And smelt so ? pah !

[Throws down the Skull

Hor. E'en so, my lord.

Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio !

*° The repetition, " this same skull, sir," is found only in th«
folio. Likewise, the words, " Let me see," at the beginning of
Hamlet's second speech, after. H.

SO. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 355

Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of
Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole ?

Hor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to con-
sider so.

Ham. No, 'faith, not a jot ; but to follow him
thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead
it ; as thus : Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust ; the dust is earth ;
of earth we make loam : and why of that loam,
whereto he was converted, might they not stop a
beer-barrel ?

Imperial Caesar,21 dead, and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away :
O ! that the earth, which kept the world in awe.
Should patch a wall t'expel the winter's flaw!*'
But soft ! but soft ! aside : — here comes the king,

Enter Priests, fyc., in Procession ; the. Corpse of
OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following ; tht
King, the Queen, their Trains, fyc.

The queen, the courtiers. Who is that they follow,
And with such maimed rites ? This doth betoken,
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life. 'Twas of some estate.23
Couch we awhile, and mark.

[Retiring with HORATIO.

Lacr. What ceremony else ?

Ham. That is Laertes, a very noble youth : marlc.

Laer. What ceremony else?

41 So the folio ; the quartos, " Imperious Ccesar." The two
words were sometimes used indifferently. See Troilus and Cres-
sida, Act iv. sc. 5, note 17. H.

** A flaw is a violent gust of wind, See Conolanus, Act v.
sc. 3, note 6.

13 To fordo is to undo, ic destroy. Estates was a common
term for persons of rank.

JJ56 H \MLET, ACT V.

1 Priest. Her obsequies have been as far en-

larg'd

As we have warranty : her death was doubtful ;
And, but that great command o'ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd
Till the last trumpet ; for charitable prayers,
Shards,24 flints, and pebbles should be thrown on

her;

Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,*5
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.26

Laer. Must there no more be done ?

1 Priest. No more be done.

We should profane the service of the dead,
To sing a requiem,27 and such rest to her
AB to peace-parted souls.

Laer. Lay her i'the earth ;

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring ! — I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.

Ham. What ! the fair Ophelia ?

** Shards not only means fragments of pots and tiles, but rub-
bish of any kind. Baret has " shardes of stones, fragmentum
lapidis ;" and "shardes, or pieces of stones broken and shattred,
rubbel or rubbish of old houses." Our version of the Bible has
preserved to us pot-sherds ; and bricklayers, in Surrey and Sussex
use the compounds tile-sherds, slate-sherds. The word is not in
the quartos. — For, in the preceding line, has the force of in-
stead of.

46 That is, garlands. Still used in most northern languages
but uo other example of its use among us has yet offered itself
It is thought that Shakespeare may have met with the word in
some old history of Hamlet, which furnished him with his fable.
The folio changed this unusual word for rites, a less appropriate
word.

26 Of has here the force of with.

91 A requiem, is a mass sung for the rest of the soul. So called
from the words, •' Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domiue."

SC. 1. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 357

Quetn. Sweets to the sweet : farewell '

[Scattering Flowers.

I hop'd thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife ;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not to have strew'd thy grave.

Laer. O ! treble woe

Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Depriv'd thee off! — Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.

[Leaps into the Grave

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead ;
Till of this flat a mountain you have made
To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.

Ham. [Advancing.] What is he, whose grief
Bears such an emphasis ? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers 1 this is I,
Hamlet the Dane. [Leaps into the Grave.

Laer. The devil take thy soul !

^Grappling with him.

Ham. Thou pray'st not well.
1 pr'ythee, take thy fingers from my throat ;
For, though I am not splenetive and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand.

King. Pluck them asunder.

Queen. Hamlet, Hamlet!

All. Gentlemen, —

Hor. Gt)od my lord, be quiet. [The Attendant*
part them, and they come out of the Grave.

Ham. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme,
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

Queen. O my son ! what theme ?

358 HAMLET, ACT »

Ham. I lov'd Ophelia : forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my surn. — What wilt tliou do for her?

King. O ! he is mad, Laertes.

Queen. For love of God, forbear him.

Ham. 'Zounds, show rne what thou'lt do .
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? won't teat

thyself]

Woo't drink up Esill,28 eat a crocodile ?
I'll do't. — Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave ?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I :
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us ; till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make O.ssa like a wart ! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.

1(8 So this name is spelt in the quartos, all hut that of 1603
which has vessels. The folio spells it Esile. What particular
Jake, river, firth, or gulf was meant by the Poet, is something un-
certain. The more common opinion is, that he had iu mind the
river Yesd which, of the larger branches of the Rhine, is the one
nearest to Denmark. In the maps of our time, Isef is the name
of a gulf almost surrounded by land, in the island of Zealand,
not many miles west of Elsinore. Either of these names might
naturally enough have been spelt and pronounced Esill or Tsell by
an F.nglis'uman in Shakespeare's time. As for the notion held by
some, that the Poet meant eysell or eisel, an old word for rinegar,
it seems pretty thoroughly absurd. In strains of hyperbole, such
figures of speech were often used by the old poets. Thus in King
Richard 11 : "The task he undertakes is numbering sands, and
drinking oceans dry." And in Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose i
" He underfongeth a great paine, that undertaketh to drinke up
Sair.e." Also, in Eastward Hoe: "Come, drink up Rhine,
Thames and Meander dry." And in Greene's Orlando i"urio3o:
" Else would I set my mouth to Tygris streams, and drink up
overflowing Euphrates." And in Marlowe's Jew of Malta:
u Sooner shall thou drink the ocean :lry than conquer Malta." —
Woo't is a contraction of wenddst th.vu, said to be common in the
northern counties of England. As it is spelt woo't in the ol."
copies, we know not why certain editors read wool't. H.

SC. If. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 359

Queen. This is mere madness •.

And thus awhile the fit will work on him ;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.29

Ham. Hear you, sir :

What is the reason that you use me thus ?
I lov'd you ever : But it is no matter ;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. [Eztt>

King. I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon

him. — [Exit HORATIO.

[To LAERTES.] Strengthen your patience in oui

last night's speech ;

We'll put the matter to the present push. —
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.—
This grave shall have a living monument :
An hour of quiet shortly we shall see ;
Till then, in patience our proceeding be. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. A Hall in the Castle.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO.

Ham. So much for this, sir : now shall you see

the other. —
You do remember all the circumstance 1

19 The folio gives this speerh to the King, in whose mouth it is
about as proper as a diamond in a swine's snout. — The golden
couplets are the (wo eggs of the dove ; the nestlings, when first
hatched, being covered with a yellow down ; and in her patient
tenderness the mother rarely leaves the nest, till her little-ones at-
tain to some degree of dove-discretion. — Disclose was often used
for hatch. Thus in the Boke of St. Albans. 1496 : " For to speke
of hawkes : fyrst, they ben egges, and aflerwarde they ben dit-
clogyd hawkys." Again : " Comynly goshawkes ben disclosyd
assooue as the choughs." H.

300 HAMLET, ACT V

Hot. Remember it, my lord !

Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fight-
ing.

That would not let me sleep : methought, I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes." Rashly,— .
And prais'd be rashness for it : let us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall ; 2 and that should

teach us,

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will, —

Hor. That is most certain

Ham. — Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf 'd about me,3 in the dark
Grop'd I to find out them ; had my desire ;
Finger'd their packet ; and, in fine, withdrew
To mine own room again : making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal 4
Their grand commission ; where I found, Horatio,
O royal knavery ! an exact command, —

1 The bilboes were bars of iron with fellers annexed lo (hem,
by which mulinous or disorderly sailors were ancienlly linked to-
gether. The word is derived from Bilboa, in Spain, where the
things were made. To uiuiersiand ihe allusion, it should he known
that as these fetters connected the legs of the offenders very close-
ly togelher, iheir allempls lo rest must he as fruitless as those of
Hamlet, in whose mind there was a kind of fighting that would not
let him sleep. The bilboes are still shown in the Tower, among
the other spoils of ihe Armada. — Mutines is for mutineers. See
King John, Act ii. sc. 2, note 10.

* To pall was to fade or fall away ; to become, as it were, dead,
or without spirit : from the old French pasler. Thus in Antony
and Cleopatra : " I'll never follow Ihypall'd fortunes more." — The
quartos have learn instead of teach.

3 " Esclavine," says Coigrave, " a sea-gowne, a coarse, high-
collar'd and shorl-sleeved gowne, reaching to the mid-leg, and
useJ moslly by seamen and sailors."

* Thus the folio ; ihe quartos, unfold. Unseal is shown to be
rght hy his reseating ihe packet. — In the second line after, the
quartos read " A royal knavery " H.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK.. 361

Larded with many several sorts of reasons, —
Importing Denmark's health, and England's too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,8 —
That on the supervise, no leisure bated,8
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.

Hor. Is't possible ?

Ham. Here's the commission : read it at more

leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed ? 7

Hor. I beseech you.

Ham. Being thus benetted round with villains, -
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play, — I sat me down,
Devis'd a new commission ; wrote it fair.
I once did hold it, as our statists do,8
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much
How to forget that learning ; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service.9 Wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote 1

Hor. Ay, good my lord.

Ham, An earnest conjuration from the king, —

' The Poet several times uses bugs for bugbears. See 3 Henry
VI., Act v. sc. 2, note 1. H.

' The supervise is the looking over ; no leisure bated means
without any abatement or intermission of time.

7 The quartos have now instead of me. H.

8 Statists are statesmen. Blackstone says, that " most of our
great men of Shakespeare's time wrote very bad hands ; their sec-
retaries very neat ones." This must be taken with some qualifi-
cation ; for Elizabeth's two most powerful ministers, Leicester and
Burleigh, both wrote good hands. It is certain that there were
some who did write most wretched scrawls, but probably not from
affectation ; though it was accounted a mechanical and vulgar ac-
complishment to write a fair hand.

' Sir Thomas Smyth says of the yeoman soldiers, that tbej
were "the stable troop of footmen that affraide all France."

362 HAMLET, ACT V

As England was his faithful tributary ;
As love between them like the palm might flourish ;
As peace should still her wheaten garland weai,
And stand a cement 'tween their amities ; I0
And many such like ases of great charge, —
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allow'd.

Hor. How was this seal'd ?

Ham. Why, even in that was Heaven ordinant :
T had my father's signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal ;
Folded the writ up in form of the other ;
Subscrib'd it ; gave't th' impression ; plac'd it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight ; and what to this was sequent
Thou know'st already.

Hor. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't

Ham Why, man, they did make love to this em

ployment : n

They are not near my conscience ; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow.
'Tis dangerous, when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell-incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

Hor. Why, what a king is this !

Ham. Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon 1
He that hath kill'd my king, and whor'd my mother ;
Popp'd in between th' election and my hopes ;
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,

10 This is oddly expressed, as Johnson observes ; but the mean-
ing appears to be, " Stand as a note of connexion between theii
amities, to prevent them from being brought to a period."

11 This line is met with only in the folio. H.

bC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 363

And with such cozenage ; is't not perfect conscience,
To quit him with this arm 1 and is't not to be damn'd,
To Jet this canker of our nature come
In further evil ? 12 '

Har. It must be shortly known to him from Eng-
land,
What is the issue of the business there.

Ham. It will be short : the interim is mine ;
And a man's life no more than to say, one.
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For by the image of my cause I see
The portraiture of his : I'll count his favours: u
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion.

Hor. Peace ! who comes here 1

Enter OSRICK.

Osr. Your lordship is right welcome back to
Denmark.

Ham. I humbly thank you, sir. — Dost know this
water-fly 1 14

Hor. No, my good lord.

Ham. Thy state is the more gracious ; for 'tis a
vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile:
let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand
at the king's mess : 'tis a chough ; but, as I say, spa-
cious in the possession of dirt.

If The last two lines of this speech, and what follows, down to
the entrance of Osrick, is not in the quartos. H.

13 Rowe changed this to " I'll court his favour ; " but there ia
no necessity for change. Hamlet means, "I'll make account of
his favours," that is, of his goodwill ; the general meaning of fa-
vours in the Poet's time.

14 In Troilus and Cressida, Thersites says, " How the pool
world is pestered tvith such water-flies ; diminutives of nature."
The gnats and such like insects are not inapt emblems of such bus)
trifiers as Osr-iek.

364 HAMLET, ACT V

Osr. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure,
I should impart a thing to you from his majesty.

Ham. I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of
spirit. Your bonnet to its right use ; 'tis for the
head.

Osr. I thank your lordship, 'tis very hot.

Ham. No, believe me, 'tis very cold : the wind
is northerly.

Osr. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

Ham. But yet, methinks, it is very sultry and hot
for my complexion.18

Osr. Exceedingly, my lord ; it is very sultry, • —
as 'twere, — I cannot tell how. — But, my lord, his
majesty bade me signify to you, that he has laid a
great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter, —

Ham. I beseech you, remember —

[Moving him to put on his Hat.

Osr. Nay, good my lord ; for mine ease, in good
faith.18 Sir, here is, newly come to court, Laertes ;
believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most ex-
cellent differences,17 of very soft society, and great
showing : Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is
the card or calendar of gentry ; for you shall find
in him the continent of what part a gentleman
would see.

Ham. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in
you ; though, I know, to divide him inventorially,
would dizzy the arithmetic of memory ; and it but
yaw neither,18 in respect of his quick sail. But, in

u The quartos read or instead of for, thus leaving a break at-
ter complexion. H.

16 After this, the folio adds, " Sir, you are not ignorant of what
excellence Laertes is at his weapon," and then on.its what follows
down to the question, " What's his weapon ? " H.

17 That is, distinguishing excellencies.

18 Thus the quarto of 1604 ; the others have raw instead of

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 36b

the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of
great article ; and his infusion of such dearth and
rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his sem-
blable is his mirror ; and who else would trace him,
his umbrage, nothing more.

Osr. Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

Ham. The concernancy, sir 1 why do we wrap
the gentleman in our more rawer breath ?

Osr. Sir?

Hor. Is't not possible to understand in another
tongue ? l9 You will do't, sir, really.

Ham What imports the nomination of this gen-
tleman ?

Osr. Of Laertes ?

Hor. His purse is empty already; all his golden
words are spent.

Ham. Of him, sir.

Osr. I know, you are not ignorant —

Ham. I would, you did, sir ; yet, in faith, if you
did, it would not much approve me. — Well, sir.

yaie. The word is thus defined in Cole's Dictionary : " To yaw,
(as of a ship,) hue illuc vacillare, capite nutare." It occurs as a
substantive in Massinger's Very Woman : " O, the yaws that she
will make ! Look to your stern, dear mistress, and steer right."
Where Gilford notes, — " A yaw is that unsteady motion which a
ship makes in a great swell, when, in steering1, she inclines to the
right or left of her course." Scott also has the word in The An-
tiquary: "Thus escorted, the Antiquary moved along full of his
learning, like a lordly man-of-war, and every now and then yaw
ing to starboard and larboard to discharge a broadside upon his
followers." — The old copies have yet instead of it; which, says
Mr. Dyce, •'' was often mistaken by our early printers for yet, per-
haps because it was written yt." His is for its, referring to mem
ory. See 2 Henry IV., Act i. sc. 2, note 16. H.

19 Malone suspected this should be " in a mother tongue." Ho-
atio means to imply, that what with Osrick's euphuism, and what
with Hamlet's catching of Osrick's style, they are not speaking in
a torgue that can be understood ; and he hints that they try an
other tongue, that is, the common one. u.

;tf)6 HAMLET, ACT \

Osr. You are not ignorant of what excellence
Laertes is —

Ham. I dare not confess that, lest 1 should com-
pare with him in excellence ; but to know a man
well, were to know himself.20

Osr. I mean, sir, for his weapon ; but in the
imputation laid on him by them, in his meed21 he's
unfellow'd.

Ham. What's his weapon 1

Osr Rapier and dagger.

Ham. That's two of his weapons : but, well.

Osr. The king, sir, hath wager'd with him six
Barbary horses ; against the which he has impon'd,2*
us I take it, six French rapiers and poniards, with
their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of
the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very
responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and
of very liberal conceit.

Ham. What call you the carriages 1

Hor. I knew you must be edilied by the margent
ere you had done.23 ,

Osr. The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

Ham. The phrase would be more german to the
matter, if we could carry a cannon by our sides : 1
would it might be hangers till then. But, on : Six
Barbary horses against six French swords, their
assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages ; that's

90 I dare not pretend to know him, lest I should pretend to an
equality : no man can completely know another, but by knowing
himself, which is the utmost of human wisdom.

sl Meed is merit. See 3 Henry VI., Act ii. sc. 1, note 6.

M The quartos have inpawn'd. Impon'd is probably meant as
an Osrickian form of the same word. To impawn is to put in
pledge, that is, to wager. H.

13 The gloss or commentary in old books WM usually on tb«
mzrgin of the leaf. See Romeo and Juliet, Act i. sc. 3, note 6.

NJ. I!. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 367

the French bet against the Danish. Why is this
impon'd, as you call it ?

Osr. The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen
passes between yourself and him he shall not ex-
ceed you three bits : he hath laid, on twelve for
nine ; and it would come to immediate trial, if your
lordship would vouchsafe the answer

Ham. How, if I answer, no 1

Osr. I mean, my lord, the opposition of your per-
son in trial.

Ham. Sir, I will walk here in the hall : If it
please his majesty, it is the breathing time of day
with me : 24 let the foils be brought, the gentleman
willing, and the king hold his purpose, I will win
for him, if I can ; if not, I will gain nothing but my
shame, and the odd hits.

Osr. Shall I deliver you so ?

Ham. To this effect, sir ; after what flourish your
nature will.

Osr. I commend my duty to your lordship.

[Exit.

Ham. Yours, yours. — He does well to commend
it himself; there are no tongues else for's turn.

HOT. This lapwing runs away with the shell on
his head.26

Ham. He did comply with his dug,88 before he

24 "The breathing time" is the time for exercise. Thus in All's
Well that Ends Well, Act i. sc. 2 : " A nursery to our gentry, who
are sick for breathing and exploit." H.

28 Meaning that Osrick is a raw, unfledged, foolish fellow. It
was a common comparison for a forward fool. Thus in Meres's
Wits Treasury, 1598 : " As the lapwing runneth away with the shell
on her head, as soon as she is hatched."

** Comply is used in the same sense here as in Act ii. sc. 2,
note 35. In FulweFs Art of Flatierie, Ifi79, the same idea occurs i
" The very sucking babes hath a kind of adulatiou towards theii
nurses for the dug." B

SfiS HAMLET, ACT V

suck'd it. Thus has he (and many more of the
same bevy,*7 that, I know, the drossy age dotes on)
only got the tune of the time, and outward habit of
encounter ; *8 a kind of yesty collection, which car-
ries them through and through the most fond and
winnowed opinions ; st and do but blow them to
their trial, the bubbles are out.

Enter a Lord39

Lord. My lord, his majesty commended him to
)ou by young Osrick, who brings hack to him that
you attend him in the hall : he sends to know, if
your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you
will take longer time.

Ham. I am constant to my purposes ; they follow
the king's pleasure : if his fitness speaks, mine is
ready ; now, or whensoever, provided I be so able
as now.

Lord. The king and queen and all are coming
down.

Ham. In happy time.

Lord. The queen desires you to use some gentle
entertainment to Laertes, before you fall to play.

Ham. She well instructs me. [Exit Lord.

91 Thus the folio, misprinting1, however, mine for many: the
quartos have breed instead of bevy. H.

88 That is, exterior politeness of address.

** The quarto of 1604 has " most prophane and trennoteed
opinions ; in the other quartos trennowed is changed to trenitowntd
the folio reads as in the text. It may seem strange that tms read-
ing1 should have been thought unsatisfactory, but such is the case
Warburton changed fond iofann'd, and has been followed by di-
vers editors. "Fond and winnowed opinions" are opinions con
ceitedly fine and winnowed clean of the dust of common sense
such opinions as are affected by the amateur exquisites of all
times. R.

10 All that passes between Hamlet and this lord is omitted in
the folio.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 369

Hor. You will lose this wager, my lord."

Ham. I do not think so : since he went into
France, I have been in continual practice ; I shall
win at the odds. Thou would'st not think, how ill
all's here about my heart ; but it is no matter.

Hor. Nay, good my lord, —

Ham. It is but foolery ; but it is such a kind of
gain-giving, as would, perhaps, trouble a woman.38

Hor. If your mind dislike any thing, obey it : I
will forestall their repair hither, and say you are
not fit.

Ham. Not a whit, we defy augury: there is a
special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it
be now, 'tis not to come ; if it be not to come, it
will be now ; if it be not now, yet it will come : the
readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves
knows, what is't to leave betimes 1 33 Let be.

1 The words, " this wager," are wanting in the quartos

B

* The folio has gain-giving; the quartos, gam-giving and
game-giving. Gain-giving is misgiving or giving-against ; here
meaning a dim prognostic or presentiment of evil. — "Shake-
speare," says Coleridge, " seems to mean all Hamlet's character
to be brought together before his final disappearance from the
scene ; — his meditative excess in the grave-digging, his yielding
to passion with Laertes, his love for Ophelia blazing out, his ten-
dency to generalize on all occasions in the dialogue with Horatio,
his fine gentlemanly manners with Osrick, and his and Shake-
speare's own fondness for presentiment." H.

33 This is the reading of the quartos : the folio reads, " Since
no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes ? "
Johnson thus interprets the passage : " Since no man knows aught
of the state which he leaves ; since he cannot judge what other
years may produce ; why should we be afraid of leaving life be-
times 7 " Warburton's explanation is very ingenious, but perhaps
strains the Poet's meaning : " It is true that by death we lose all
the goods of life ; yet seeing this loss is no otherwise an evil than
•s we are sensible of it ; and since death removes all sense of it
what matters it how soon we lose them ?" H.

370 HAMLET, ACT V

Enter the King, the Queen, LAERTES, Lords, OS-
RICK, and Attendants, with Foils, fyc.

King. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand
from me. [He puts the hand of LAERTES
into that of HAMLET.

Ham. Give me your pardon, sir : I've done you

wrong ;

But pardon 't, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows,

And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd
With sore distraction. What I have done,
That might your nature, honour, and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes 1 Never, Hamlet •
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not ; Hamlet denies it.
Who does it then ? His madness. If 't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd ;
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
Sir,inthis audience,34
Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot my arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.

Laer. I am satisfied in nature,

Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
To my revenge : but in my terms of honour
I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement,
Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
I have a voice and precedent of peace,
To keep my name ungor'd. But till thut time

84 This hemstitch is in the folio only. In what follows, the folia
misprints mother for brother, and ungorg'd for ungor'd. H.

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK 371

I do receive your offer'd love like love,
And will not wrong it.

Ham. I embrace it freely ;

And will this brother's wager frankly play. —
Give us the foils ; come on.36

Laer. Come ; one for me.

Ham. I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine igno-
rance

Your skill shall, like a star i'the darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed.

Laer. You mock me, sir.

Ham. No, by this hand.

King. Give them the foils, young Osrick. — Cous-
in Hamlet,
You know the wager ?

Ham. Very well, my lord :

Your grace hath laid the odds o'the weaker side.3*

King. I do not fear it : I have seen you both ;
But since he's better'd, we have therefore odds.

Laer. This is too heavy ; let me see another.

Ham. This likes me well. These foils have all a
length ? [ They prepare to play.

Osr. Ay, my good lord.

King. Set me the stoops of wine upon that

table. —

If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire :
The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath ;
And in the cup an union shall he throw,37

u The words, " come on," are not in the quartos. H,

86 The King had wagered six Ba.rba.ry horses to a few rapitr*
poniards, &c. ; that is, about twenty to one. These are the odd*
here meant. The odds the King means in the next speech were
twelve to nine in favour of Hamlet, by Laertes giving him three.
*7 The folio has union ; the quartos, unicr. and mix. Union

372 HAMLET, ACT V

Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups :
4nd let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,
"Now the king drinks to Hamlet." — Come, be-
gin;—
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

Ham. Come on, sir.

Lacr. Come, my lord. [ They play.

Ham. One.

Laer. No.

Ham. Judgment.

Osr. A hit, a very palpable hit.

Laer. Well, — again.

King. Stay ; give me drink : Hamlet, this pearl

is thine ;
Here's to thy health. — Give him the cup.

[Trumpets sound; and Cannons shot off" within.

Ham. I'll play this bout first ; set it by awhile.
Come. — [They play.] Another hit ; what say you1?

Laer. A touch, a touch ; I do confess.38

King. Our son shall win.

Queen. He's fat, and scant of breath.31 —

is a name for large and precious pearls. Afterwards, on finding
out what the King's union was, Hamlet tauntingly asks, " Is thy
union here ? " According to Rondeletus, pearls were thought to
nave an exhilarating quality. To swallow them in a draught, was
esteemed a high strain of magnificence. Thus in If You know
not Me You know Nobody :

" Here sixteen thousand pound at one clap goes,
Instead of sugar : Gresham drink* this pearl
Unto the queen his mistress." H

w The words, " A touch, a touch," are not in the quartos.

H.

*• This speaking of Hamlet as "fat and scant of breath ' is
greatly at odds with the idea we are apt to form of him ; though

SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 5373

Hero, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy browa:
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet
Ham. Good madam, —

King. Gertrude, do not drink,

Queen. I will, my lord : I pray you, pardon me.
King. [Aside.] It is the poison'd cup ! it is loo

late.

Ham. I dare not drink yet, madam ; by and by
Queen. Come, let me wipe thy face.
Laer. My lord, I'll hit him now.
King. I do not think it

Laer. [Aside.] And yet 't is almost 'gainst my

conscience.
Ham. Come, for the third, Laertes. You but

dally :

I pray you, pass with your best violence :
1 am afeard you make a wanton of me.40

Laer. Say you so ? come on. [ They plo-.y.

Osr. Nothing, neither way.
Laer. Have at you now.

[LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then, in sckf-
Jling, they change Rapiers, and HAMLET
wounds LAERTES.

there is no good reason why the being somewhat fat should in anj
point take off from his excellences as a man or a prince. It is
thought by some, however, and seems indeed likely enough to have'i
been true, that the expression was used with special reference to
Burbage, the original actor of Hamlet's part. Burbage died in
1619 ; and in a manuscript elegy upon his death, sold, not many
years since, among Heber's books, are the following lines, which
both ascertain his original performance of the part, and also ren-
der it probable thai the words in question had reference to him :

" No more young Hamlet, though hut scant of breath,
Shall cry ' Revenge ! ' for his dear father's death." H

40 That is, that you trifle with me as if I were a child, or one
not worth " your best violence." — The quartos have tttre instead
o< afeard. a.

374 HAMLET, ACT V

King. Part them ! they are incens'd

Ham. Nay, come again. [The Queen falls.

Osr. Look to the queen there, ho !

Hor. They bleed on both sides. — How is't, my

lord?

Osr. How is't, Laertes 1
Laer. Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe,

Osrick ;

£ am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.
Ham. How does the queen ?
King. She swoons to see them bleed.

Queen. No, no, the drink, the drink! — O, my

dear Hamlet !

The drink, the drink ! — I am poison'd ! [Dies.

Ham. O villainy ! — Ho! let the door be lock'd :

Treachery ! seek it out. [LAERTES falls.

Laer. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain ;

^o medicine in the world can do thee good :

,thee there is not half an hour of life ; 41
p ie treacherous instrument is in thy hand, •
ibated, and envenom'd.4* The foul practice
ath turn'd itself on me : lo ! here I lie,
lever to rise again. Thy mother's poison'd :
can no more ; the king, the king's to blame.
Ham. The point

{ Envenom 'd too ! — Then, venom, to thy work !
1 [Stabs the King

All. Treason ! treason !

King. O ! yet defend me, friends ; I am but hurt
Ham. Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned

Dane,

Drink off this potion: — is thy union here ?
Follow my mother. [King dies

41 80 the folio ; the quartos, " half an hour's life." H

** Unbatrd is unblunt'd, as in Act iv. sc. 7, note 18. •

II.

PRINCE OF DENMARK. 376

Latr. He is ju.«tly serv'd ;

It is a poison temper'd by himself. —
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet :
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me ! [Dies

Ham. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio. — Wretched queen, adieu ! —
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time, (as this fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest,) O ! I could tell you —
But let it be -- Horatio, I am dead ;
Thou liv'st : report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.

Hor. Never believe it :

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
Here's yet some liquor left.

Ham. As thou 'rt a man,

Give me the cup : let go ; by Heaven, I'll have't. —
O God ! — Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me 1
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story. —

[March afar off, and Sliot within.
What warlike noise is this ?

Osr. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from

Poland,

To the ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.

Ham. O, I die, Horatio !

The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit : °

** 1 o overcrow is to overcome, to subdue. " These noblemen

376 HAMLET, ACT Y

I cannot live to hear the news from England ;
But I do prophesy th' election lights
On Fortinbras : he has my dying voice ;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited 44 — The rest is silence. [Z>i>*,
Hor. Now cracks a noble heart ! — Good night,

sweet prince ;

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest ! —
Why does the drum come hither. [March vrithin.

Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and
Others.

Fort. Where is this sight 1

Hor. What is it ye would see 1

If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

Fort. This quarry cries on havoc ! 4* — O, proud

death !

What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes, at a shot,
So bloodily hast struck ?

1 Amb. The sight is dismal,

And our affairs from England come too late :
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd ;
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Where should we have our thanks 1

laboured with tooth and naile to overcrow, and consequently to
overthrow one another." — Holinshed's History of Ireland.

44 Occurrents was much used in the Poet's time for events or
occurrences. — Solicited is prompted or excited ; as " this super-
natural soliciting " in Macbeth. — " More and less '' is greater
and smaller ; a common usage with the old writers. — The folio
adds, after silence, "O, o, o, o." H.

46 To cry on was to exclaim against. I suppose, when unfair
sportsmen destroyed more game than was reasonable, the censure
was to call it havoc. — JOHNSON. — Quarry was the term used
for a heap of slaughtered game. See Macbeth, Act i. sc. I
note 8

SO. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 377

Hor. Not from his mouth,

Had it th' ability of life to thank you :
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,4*
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view ;
And let me speak to th' yet unknowing world,
How these things came about : so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts ;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters ;
Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd cause ; 47
And, in this upshot, purples mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' iieads : all this can I
Truly deliver.

Fort. Le'. us haste to hear it,

And call the riobii^st to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune :
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,**
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild ; lest more mis

chance,
On plots and errors, happen.

Fort. Let four captains

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage ;

48 It has been already observed lhaljump and just, or exactly
are synonymous. See Act i. sc. 1, note 10.

47 The quartos have " and for no cause." The phrase put on
here means instigated or set on foot. Cunning refers, apparent-
ly, to Hamlet's action touching " the packet," and forc'd cause,
to the " compelling occasion," which moved him to that piece of
practice. u.

49 That is, some rights which are renumbered in this kingdom

37b HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have prov'd most royally : and, for his passage,
The soldier's music, and the rights of war,
Speak loudly for him. —
Take up the bodies. — Such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. —
Go, bid the soldiers shoot. [A dead March

[Exeunt, marching ; after which, a Peal of
Ordnance is shot off.